Author's Note: Ginger goes to the movies, but what he see on the screen means more to him than what it might do to the rest of the audience.
Warning: The warning is placed here for vinsmouse, who wanted a spew warning here, claiming it might be a bad idea to drink while reading the funnier parts. So please keep in mind that drinking any kind of beverage while reading this, might be hazzard'ous to the health of your screen.
Disclaimer: I do not own Biggles. I am merely playing with him and his friends. I give my word that when I am done with them they shall have come to no permanent harm. In case of damage I promise I will fix it with some chewing gum and Ginger's mechanical degree.
Gold Always Fades Away
Ginger sat in the theater as the movie slowly played towards the end. It was a busy night but then John Wayne always seemed to draw quite a crowd. He was a legend for his western movies, even here where not many took the films to heart the way Ginger did. Most of them seemed to take them for granted, nothing but a cheep silly entertainment.
Biggles and his friends humored him as he copied gestured and imitated drawls. They saw it as a boyhood interest that he would be growing out of. Perhaps so, he just knew what the films meant to him, not what they meant to the others.
The western films did seem to attract a crowd of kids, and he did not know many who did those better than John Wayne. Yet it was not a western movie he was watching now, it was a war movie. Shooting and killing, marching soldiers and planes soaring through the air. The young boys in the front where cheering loudly, hollering instructions to their heroes while no one else seemed to mind enough to silence them.
He had bought a bag of monkey nuts, but he had not touched them for a long time now, the bag forgotten in his hand.
At the closing off the movie you saw them, all the soldiers that had been in the story. They were fading out, one by one. A picture from the movie frozen in a moment of their life. Fading out as their lives had ended on the screen. Blood pouring from ghastly wounds halted even as it was spilling out on the hard unforgiving rocks, and just so tears were coming to his eyes.
There they were, young men daring and brave, and so very young.
His throat was tight, he could not swallow, they were dead now. They had all been killed in the battle and no one around him seemed to understand.
"Well it was better than I heard it would be," a voice somewhere behind him said as the last flicker of light on the screen faded away and the ceiling lights were turned on again.
Some of them looked at him, frowned over the wet trails on his cheeks. They could not understand why he would be crying for something that was just a movie.
Because it was not just a movie.
He had been there.
He had been crouched there, trembling and scared just out of his mind while the bullets struck the youth beside him. Just a kid, so young, so proud of the uniform he was wearing. The uniform that was slowly getting soaked through with the boys own blood. He had seen him fade away, seen the life drain out of him, just like on the screen. Just like that frozen moment before he was replaced by someone else. Someone just as young and just as eager.
He had seen that smile freeze on his face, the blue eyes that just then stopped seeing the sky. He had turned away just like his friend did before the audience.
Walking out onto the sidewalk he barely noticed where he was, did not even feel the soft rain.
The children had cheered the planes loudly, the pilots even more. It was something about them that called out to them. They praised the bravery of the pilot who struggled with his plane to the end. Who held on long enough to drop his load and who even though he was dying did his best to land the plane.
He managed to touch down, but before he had taxied to a stop he was gone. Gone west on a steady course and no doubt about it.
They climbed up on the wings to lean into the cockpit, stood there and averted their eyes. Tried to cheer each other up at the same time as they congratulated his bravery and his skill. It was hard to do that, to cover up the pain in your heart and not let anyone see how it hurt you.
The next time it could be you and you knew it. It could always be you the next time.
Bullets striking your plane, tearing through the fuselage. Wind whistling through the holes and the blood pounding in your ears. It was just that when it was over, there was no second take.
He had seen it too many times, not only for himself. He had seen the others, he had seen the others cry as they lost their friends and he had seen even worse. He had seen the ones who did not dare to talk to anyone, did not dare to even try make a friend for they feared too much to lose them.
That was when you tried to say hello to someone and they would not let you, they turned away as if they had not even heard. They did not dare to make friends for they had seen too much of the war already.
He could not help it, he could not pretend he did not know what it was about. He could not watch the movie like the others did and forget that he knew all their faces. All the men that was shown as nothing more than passing pictures running a credit for the movie. The men who had gotten John Wayne where he was, allowed him to pull off his mission.
It was just that to him they were not mere pictures, they were names, they were men he had known.
That was why he paused, why he swallowed hard as he looked up towards the evening sky.
He felt lonely, as if no one would understand but he knew that was wrong. Biggles would, Algy and Bertie to. They had all been through the same thing. How many times had not Biggles told him to turn away? Sent him away from it because he wanted to spare him another one of those living nightmares that is war. Algy would put an arm over his shoulder as they walked away from the smouldering wreckage. Bertie would say something encouraging in that ridiculous but caring way of his.
If it had not been for them he was not certain that he would have been able to bear it. There had been many times when he truly doubted he would be able to go through it. They had always been there to help him through it.
He just knew that when he walked inside they would ask about the look on his face, they would also understand for they had seen the same things.
To some it was a film, silver rays of light flickering on the screen, to others it was much more. It was people and bits of life, golden memories that slowly faded away…
The End
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