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The Dark Warrior's Triangle of Darkness strategem was flawless. Endless troops hot from the Underearth gave him invincibility in numbers.

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Note: I stole the Triangle of Darkness idea from the Second World War- more specifically from an IWM Interview that I catalogued (see Content Description).

250 Words: Book immersion

I get lost continuously in the worlds created in my mind by the shapes made by ink on paper.  Like Alice crawling down the rabbit hole I enter wonderland after wonderland immersing myself wholly in these strange new worlds.

Even when I have marked and closed the books, my brain carries on, pretending I’m doing something like wandering around a misty moor dressed like it’s more than a hundred years ago or walking the streets of Victorian London dodging pickpockets and shady characters.

I go too far, though, the emotional cost draining me entirely so that it is some time before I can carry on to another book and put myself through the mill again, the issues rolling through my mind and not letting me get on with my own life as I worry about the characters and what will happen to them next.  I even changed my name to Jane hoping Mr Rochester would come to call.

Escaping from Vienna, distanced from my family by space and age, it is probably not surprising I opt for this bubble existence, these escapist fantasies; especially in these beautiful surroundings that cause the mind to dream.  Real life keeps letting me down, after all, while books can’t let me down, they can only transport me to places still full of trials and tribulations, but ones that are normally resolved and don’t drag on with no end in sight.  Even if these worlds do stay with me too long they still complete me.

250 Words: She made me burn the letters page by page

We met by moonlight and sat on the swings talking all evening.  We never even kissed, it was so innocent. We were kids.  I was twelve years old.

He would leave me letters in a box buried under a large stone in the flower beds.  The smell of lavender still takes me back to those months of happiness.  We would write of our hopes and dreams, funny incidents occurring at our respective schools- all those things we would otherwise talk about on our swings.

I would write on lavender paper, sprayed with rosewater.  He on white watermarked writing paper.  I kept my bounty of paper, tied with red ribbon, under my pillow by night and under the floorboards by day. 

Until the day my mother found us together sat holding hands on our swings for what would be the last time and dragged me kicking and screaming back to the house to cleanse me of him.

She wouldn’t listen to my pleas.  He was sixteen and she wouldn’t believe in our innocence, claiming he was after our money.

The tears burned my face as his words blackened and crumbled to ash.  My hands felt dead, like someone else’s, as they fed each leaf to the flames against their own will.

I could barely see as she forced us to say goodbye and packed me off to boarding school.  My rosy worldview shattered for the first and last time.  I soon became hardened, having taken the first step through my metamorphosis.

250 Words (x2): Memories of Sergeant Lucas

It’s difficult to forget him- a very queer man indeed.  We’re out in the jungle facing death daily and all he could think of was, well… I suppose I was jealous of the man- he had such perfect ways of escaping the war.

The rest of us spoke constantly of home, missing food, of the next rest period; rotated round and around the same subjects.  Lucas was always off creating his own private world to live in.  Where Tolkein had Middle Earth, our Sergeant had religion and his hobby.

His Bible was with Lucas throughout his service and he read a section of it every day.  Most us felt we were getting too close to our maker as it was without embracing religion when at rest, whether or not it had been with us before.  To try and get closer seemed insane.  Still, such belief must have been comforting in the face of the stories we heard about the enemy.  As must have been a true belief when the bullets were flying rather than the knee jerk religion I acquired.

Mostly, though, we did find it weird for someone to read The Bible in such surroundings.  I can remember avoiding the Padre at all costs on a Sunday.  Of course, just before an action I was always made a hypocrite, running straight to him looking for divine protection or comfort in death.  It was just.. jealousy, as I said, and wanting to escape further from the war in that respect.

And there was his hobby.  Back home Lucas was a collector of insects.  Presumably somewhere in his home were great wooden cases with tray after tray of creatures carefully pinned and labelled.

When he found out where we were posted he must have burned brightly inside.  Wherever we went I’m sure he’d have had a field day but.. well, the jungle must’ve been a richer mine than the desert or Europe.  Certainly he was in his element once out in the tropics.  Everywhere he looked his eyes would light up as he saw specimens that would be new additions to his collection.  (Much like myself and my children with cigarette cards and my grandchildren with their sticker albums).  Forward he would step with purpose and meaning otherwise unseen, a jar in his hand, ready to trap, freeze and send the poor devils home.  Whatever we were doing and however close to danger, that canny NCO always seemed to have an eye out for his next find.  Not that he could always capture- often he would just store the memory for when he could.

Again, most of us already felt too close to these things.  Every night we were woken by some bastard thing on us.  The idea of sticking them in jars as souvenirs was horrific.  And it wasn’t just butterflies and beetles- blooming hornets and other dangerous things to mess with were caught.  A madder man I have never met: Sergeant Lucas was one mighty queer bugger, believe me.

250 Words: Fred’s Tea Shop

I will always remember this among the lighter memories from those sweaty days in
the jungles of Burma, along with the self-heating soup can exploding on me and the
look on my corporal’s face every morning when he took the nasty salt tablets. All
the little things that helped get us away from the memory of the Japs running at us
screaming, “Banzai,” with a look straight from hell in their eyes. A look we always
returned with bullets and bayonets. No doubt a similar look in our eyes.

Whenever anyone went out on patrol through the thick jungle one by one, nerves
on end, shirts drenched, rifles loaded and bayonets fixed and ready to pierce along
paths well trodden, eyes constantly looking into the green dazzle keenly looking for
anything not part of the pattern. The ears similar, filtering any noise for anything as
unnatural as us. And through villages hoping to meet with friendly Burmese and not
the retreating enemy with one up the spout and aimed at us. Our nerves always on
end, our fingers always itching: scared enough but not too much.

Anyway, whenever anyone returned from patrol they would always find Fred grinning
and ready with a brew: that little piece of home that was always with us. He would
be sitting down with his funny little cardboard sign reading, “Fred’s Tea Shop.” And
he would hand us a mug to refresh us. “Get that down you, make you feel better.
You’re home now, son.”

250 Words: Shanghai 1937

The truck makes its way along narrow streets loaded with doll-sized coffins currently
empty. The old driver’s face wears the same fixed expression every night as he tries
to distance himself from what he has to do. His grim task is to fill the boxes with the
bodies of those who have lived only shortly. Exposed to death's gaze while still wet
from the womb.

He stops outside a house whose occupants have left something for him to
collect. The old man gets out and stoops to pick up the baby girl, showing her the
tenderness her parents were unable to. He lowers her into the toy box coffin gently,
nails its lid down and places it in an empty spot, the first of tonight's 'done' pile. He
then returns to the cab to continue his grisly round.

Unseen pink fairies follow the truck like a river of light flowing, twisting and turning
in mid-air. At each stop a few drops come away to where the baby lay and whistle.
Whistle to distract the spirits that would otherwise follow the unfortunate child for
all times. They know she has suffered too much already, or perhaps not enough.
Certainly nothing to warrant any more disturbance.

Every night they gather and fly along the truck's path to ease the passage of the still
stirring spirits. Crying at the eternal horror of all they see. At the senselessness of
this practice. Especially when, outside the city, millions are killed by bayonet and
gun.

250 Words: Durban

The lady in white sings the boys in and out of harbour; welcoming them to our city, telling them we want to give them one last taste of what they are fighting for.  To show how proud we are of them and the risk they are taking for the whole of the free world.  

She greets every ship with her voice and never misses a single one.  Reminding them of the civilisation they are will protect in the desert or the jungle.  She believes in the war and gives something to those who will man the front line thousands of miles away from this island of peace she represents.  She welcomes the men on their long voyage to relax and enjoy the delights of Durban.

***

She’s a siren, the first part of the charm offensive.  She sees only white faces, the potential for new seed to fill the streets.  Colour is the issue in these parts and keeping them separated into neat boxes of different sizes and quality.

The soldiers are told where they can go and who they can talk to, the colours they are able to mix with in a way that creates no spots.  Civilians welcome them with open arms inviting them to dinner: afterwards indirectly reading them the manifesto.  

The lady in white sings them out of harbour, into the Indian Ocean and over the horizon.  Filling their heads with her song as a reminder of Durban so that, if they survive, perhaps they might return.