Die Zerrissene Perlenkette
It was a misty dawn in the peaceful German field. The air was damp with that foggy sort of drizzle that is felt on the face but not noticed until it runs down in little streaks. There was not a soul in sight, apart the lone figure absently strolling along the quaint path, a large bouquet balanced on the crook of his arm.
He always came to this place at this lonely hour. Maybe there was something he preferred about visiting alone? It was always so silent, so tranquil, nothing to remind anyone of the tragedy that happened there.
The first strange ball started to appear just ahead. To an outsider, it was perhaps the most unlikely thing to see in a field; a large, stainless steel sphere nestled in the grass, the misty rain glinting softly on the surface in the early morning light, like dew on a spider's web. A length of chain was threaded through the ball, giving the appearance of a bead fallen from a giant necklace.
Another bead lay further ahead, and then another and another… he didn't need to count them anymore. In fact, the sight of a giant steel bead in the middle of a field didn't strike him as unusual in the slightest. Not when he knew the story behind it.
In his mind's eye he was whisked back to the same field, only much, much different. The pastoral landscape had been contorted into what can only be described as a battlefield. Debris littered the smouldering ground, the trees were all but obliterated in some places. A human, wailing in his own language, kneeling in the remains of the forest, clutching a string of pearls as if they held everything he lived for…
He pushed the vision away, stepping up the pace. This was no time for flashbacks, especially ones he did not want to remember.
He stopped at the clearing. For most, this was where the trail of pearls finally made sense. A simple, round clearing, encircled by candles, and two plaques nestled in the foliage from the forest behind. On one, a map of Europe, the cities of Moscow, Zurich, Bergamo, Ufa and the village of Überlingen, his current location, all marked. Drawn over the map was a string of pearls, starting at Iceland and ending abruptly in the middle of France, as if the string was broken. Pearls were scattered across the map, giving the impression they had rolled from the original string.
The torn pearl necklace.
He cast his strange, violet eyes to the second tablet. Seventy-one names. He didn't need fluency in German to read the inscription above, to understand the fate of those seventy-one names. After all, sixty-nine of them were his people.
Again his mind wandered to that calm July night, thirty-six thousand feet in the skies above the field. Five men in the cockpit of an aeroplane, a T-CAS warning bleeping, and conflicting messages from local air traffic control and the airplane. At the time, it seemed inevitable what would happen next. A nation always has a sense of foreboding, as well as short visions, before an accident. It still didn't prepare his mind for when that other plane appeared, the sudden brief panic, the noise as its tail tore through the other, severing the cockpit from the main fuselage, seeing it shatter to pieces, and plummet to the ground…
That was where the nightmare had ended. Only it wasn't a nightmare.
He sighed softly, adjusting his scarf with his free hand, and catching sight of the scar on the back of his hand. Every day, on the anniversary of the collision, it flares up slightly as the families of the victims remember. It's not painful, he's felt much worse, but it sort of tingles, gently prompting him to remember and visit the spot. He always comes, early in the morning before anyone else arrives, leaving a bouquet of his favourite flowers in remembrance, one flower for each of his people, two more for the other victims, and a final flower for the victim of that… unfortunate event.
He didn't want that to happen. He didn't want the controller to die, for a mistake made under high stress.
But, what's done is done, he reminded himself. Carefully he knelt, placing the bouquet in front of the two tablets. Seventy-two sunflowers; one for each victim.