Scared souls
The sky was tinged with the blood of the fallen, the ground as empty as their eyes and a silence reigned over the land filled with the corpses of loved ones. Tears flowed like rivers from broken hearts as the heroes of battle were lifted into their final resting place, some without even a name to call their own and others without anything left to bury.
A young boy watched these proceedings from afar, his green eyes filled with pain. Was it really worth it, his glance seemed to ask, was it worth losing your loved ones, your family for a mad man's fantasy land? Was it worth being treated like animals, for the simple crime of being born as who they are, in a family over which they had no choice, were all soldiers of the opposite side bad when they were the same people as those they fought against? Did they all choose to fight in the war or was the war brought on them? All those lives, the innocence lost, the way they were forced to grow up, how could it be worth anything? Why were they, innocent citizens, dragged in a war of bureaucrats? Why were people being killed simply for their blood and who they loved?
Looking at the sad faces of the people burying their loved ones, sons and brothers, husbands and friends, he recalled the family he too had lost. A family stolen from him by this useless war, a family whose fate he did not even know. He did not know if his father yet lived or died, if his mother who had been taken prisoner would ever be freed or if he would ever have a family again, would he ever be able to heal after the horrors he had seen, the beating and torment he had endured for simply looking like he did, for the dark hair and stormy eyes, for the religion he belonged to. Would he ever be able to bring back the carefree little boy he had been before he was left alone in a cruel world where he had to fight to survive from one day to another. He felt it in himself, that he would be able to, because his young brain could still hope despite all the horrors he had been a silent witness to. Yet he felt his wounds even when healed would remain raw and scars would never grace hi soul.
With a last look to the place where many people lay in a holy sleep, he turned away to find shelter where he could because home was something he had not had for a very long while.
Days passed and one day news came that people who had been captured were being released and with eager faces many people stood at the borders, hoping against hope to see the face of a loved one. Many of them knew that the person would be damaged, hurt, and yet they dared to hope even as they flinched away from the tortured eyes of those seeing home at last. The young boy watched, waiting, for someone to return to him but in the end he could bear it no longer. He wanted to go away but he could not, because being a child he still held onto a light which the world had perhaps lost. He stood there trembling, his heart crying for his parents but they did not return and his hopes were being dashed with every passing face. As the last men were let inside their country, he sighed and tears started to fall as he looked at the ground, still hoping but a part of him felt it was fruitless until suddenly a hand tenderly wiped his cheek. Instinctively he flinched but then grey eyes met blue and he smiled a smile that he felt could light up the world. It did not light up the world but it took some pain away from the grey eyed man in front of him. The man was still haunted, still broken, still plagued with terror but seeing this boy whose safety he had held onto in captivity, whose well being he had prayed for even as he suffered and lost hope for the world and the monsters in it, awoke a fire in his heart, a fire that could heal him, maybe not fully but it was enough because it was the promise of a happy future and innocence that could yet be saved.
"Hey little guy," the man croaked, his dry throat making it difficult to speak.
"Hello Uncle Padfoot," the child replied, happiness shinning in the very eyes that still searched for his parents but the sense of urgency was lifted, hope was renewed. If his father's best friend was here, he father might be here too, the boy thought, even as his mature war riddled side, warned him not to hope too much lest they be shattered. Desperate he asked the man who had been with him almost as long as his parents, the man who had watched his first steps, his godfather, "Dad and Mum?"
The grey eyes dulled as they recalled the deaths of his brother, his best friend, and his sister in law by everything but blood. The memories filled him with anguish and anger and he almost lashed out except for the small hand that suddenly held his. For a moment he struggled but the boy held on until his godfather was back to normal, as normal as could now be and without words the two engulfed in their sorrow walked away even as the flowers grew and birds welcomed spring like others welcomed family.
Days turned to months and months to years as the two healed together, an uneasy healing, a difficult one but together they managed to bring back their smiles and move away from the horrors of the past. They were each other's anchor in the storm of life, the boy's childish optimism sparking hope in the older man and yet providing responsibility and need to be mature. The man's maturity on the other hand comforted the boy, showing him he was not the only one to shed innocence too soon. They were each other's family as they finally walked into different phases of life. Always together, always a family until one day the past was nothing but a horror never to be revisited, yet prominent in making them the kind men they were.
The once young boy, now laughed with his Godfather as he rocked his young son in his arms, smiling at the boy while his wife looked on fondly. The baby traced the scar on his "grandfather's" hand, a scar born proudly as a badge of healing and smiled up at his father, pure and untouched by horror. The two men vowed that would never change and it never did because after all the horrors and traumas, life was finally good at last.
They had realized that they did not fire tinged with rage kindled with rage and hatred to heal long ago, they had known that life damaged each one but now they learnt that they could be mended, they had mended each other. What life needs, they realized is the dandelion in the spring, the bright yellow that means re-birth instead of destruction the promise that life can go on no matter how hard our loses that it can be good again and only true love, family and friendship could give that.