Litany
1 This story is based, so that you know, around the principle of 'soul making'…that none of us are born with souls, and must, instead, earn them, through suffering and prayer. During a conversation on the forum one night, I had the idea implanted in my head about how a soldier goes about earning his soul. I'd also just seen Black Hawk Down. This is what comes of giving me ideas when I've just sat through a great movie. ( Enjoy. Raen.
Nothing in this story is intended to cause offence.
2 'A minstrel boy
to the war has gone
in the ranks of the dead
you'll find him…'
Minstrel Boy – trad. Irish, included on the Black Hawk Down OST.
'The equation of the soul is written in physics both far simpler and more complicated than any men have ever devised'
- Steve Errickson.
3
4 One: Welcome to Mogadishu.
5
6 And, if this must be the end, my love, then be well, my love…Remember me.
7 *
8 He is dying…
How does he know? Because it feels like nothing at all, that's how.
He is dying, alone, in a foreign night. He is afraid. He is so afraid. Why wouldn't he be? But still, it feels like nothing at all. Maybe that's the most frightening thing; that, because he cannot feel, he cannot account for the parts of him that are missing, and the parts of him that are whole. He feels like he's made of air, or light…That kind of nothingness…
He doesn't know if he's been blown to pieces…He hopes not. He wants her to be able to recognise him enough to want to kiss him goodbye, when the time comes.
He's slipping away.
He's slipping away. He is folding into himself, and everything is important; remembering how she was, but he doesn't know why. And he's forgetting how to breath, and he can't quite remember how to pray anymore. And she's there, right beside him…
His life is bleeding away…wasting away into Mogadishu's dust…
He knew it would end like this. He never thought it would end so SOON.
He dies in the night.
He dies very alone.
*
You are strong, my love. I have no fear for you, from this day.
You will do well, my love, with or without me. DO only these things: take care of my daughter; I know she's yours, more than mine, but she's my only…Give her daddy's kiss goodnight. And live well, my love. Be always well.
Forgive me, my love, but never forget me…and do not let me make you sad.
My love.
*
one:
Lieutenant Gabriel Blackburne stepped down off the plane. The sun felt good on the back of his head. It felt good to be home. Oh, God…It felt good. He hadn't realised, before he'd gone away, how much being that far from home; from the things you loved, would change you. He felt changed; in all the places that mattered. Physically, the twenty four year old man was much the same as he'd been when he'd stepped on a similar plane, nearly six months before. He was a tall man, not heavily built, but in no way weak, his dark hair shaved to a close stubble over his skull, dressed casually in combats and a t-shirt…Every inch the soldier. Every inch of him in control.
He had never lost control. Then again, he had never had to shoot another man dead before. Mogadishu had changed him. Mogadishu had changed them all.
*
But Gabriel Blackburne felt different; he'd never before been so desperate to be home, with his wife, Indie, and the daughter that she'd already had when he married her; the child that he'd raised as his own, Alice. Never ever before had he been so desperate to see them before. Never before had he been on a mission that had been so difficult…So hurtful on the soul. There had been moments, of which he was brutally, mortally ashamed, now that he had his boots back on friendly soil, when he'd wished that he'd never gone to the Mog…wished that that conflict had never touched him. About the same time as his chalk lost their third man to Somali guns.
He'd wished himself far, far away.
Gabriel Blackburne had always been a rational man.
*
21st…
Oh, my love…how did we come to this, my love?
I knew the danger. I knew the risks of loving a soldier; the best of the best of the brightest. I knew all those things, and yet, I can't help but wonder why they were fighting someone else's civil war, a million miles from home? He's so lost, and I'm so broken…
Todd Schmitt was here today. I opened the door, and there was a man on my doorstep, who I couldn't place for a moment. He's a little taller than my husband, with close shaven brown hair, and dark blue eyes. I've always like Todd; he's handsome…he's kind…He cared for my husband. But, when he turned up here today, he looked like Death had settled on him. He can't be more than twenty two. There were dark circles around his eyes, and he looked like he hadn't slept in years. He came to tell me that my husband fought well, and died a hero, in Mogadishu, wherever the hell that is. I want to believe him. Oh, God, Love, I want to believe him…I want to believe you were a hero.
I held him; Todd Schmitt, while he wept, and begged me to believe that he tried to save you…and I believe him, when I see the look in his eyes, and the tremble in his healing hands. But, I told him, you're a medic, Todd…you're not God…None of us are. If it was his time to go…
I always thought you were immortal, Love. So, by the look of him, did Todd. You were one of those men who seemed invincible, just because you were so strong…Because the world was more…right…with you in it. I'm ashamed, Love, but it was easier, while I held Todd in my arms…if only because he reminded me of what it felt like to hold you close. He's asleep now, on the couch. He doesn't look any older than our daughter. Are they sending babies to war now, my love?
Just before he fell asleep, I looked at Todd, and I said, 'Why did they send you there, to die in vain?' He was so angry with me, Love…So angry…He wouldn't look at me. 'Don't ever say they died in vain,' he said, weeping again. 'Saying that is the same as saying that they died for nothing…and I can't think about it like that…'
Neither can I…
*
Your letter arrived today. There's some comfort in that, at least. A letter in your handwriting, to read and read until I don't need the words anymore, and a message on the machine that may or may not be your voice…
'we're going, baby…we're going. Its O.K…I'll call you, when I get back. I love you. I love you. Goodbye baby…I'll call you when I get back. I love you…'
What, my love, will you do for me when you never come back?
*
You are strong, my love. I have no fear for you, from this day.
You will do well, my love, with or without me.
And, oh, my love, however did we come to this?
*
So Gabriel Blackburne was coming home. Finally, he was coming HOME, after so long away. And there was an enduring sense that, somehow, Mogadishu had not won. That there was still some part of him that was right and human and good, despite all the horror. Despite the suffering he had seen; on both sides of the line, there was some part of him that was untouched; as it had always been. In that, he had to put his faith.
America felt good on Blackburne's skin. That was a funny way to put it, but it was a funny kind of feeling, which he would have found difficult to put into words, if pushed. It was like…
…The sun here was hot, but it did not seek to burn him dry…
…There was dust on the road, but it did not flood his nose and mouth, until he could taste only dust.
…The sky here was still BLUE, but an innocent, harmless blue…and not the aching, throbbing blue of human eyes waiting for something to hurt them.
It was good, to be on the way home at last.
*
On the long train ride home, Blackburne slumbered in an empty carriage. Haunted, he dreamt dark dreams of blood and gore, and of riding a helicopter into the depths of a City that was Dante's hell, if such a thing ever found a place in the world. Thick plumes of black smoke, pushing hard against that aching blue sky.
Mogadishu. Welcome back…as if you ever got away. Welcome back to Mogadishu.
If there is a hell…
The memory of watching Todd Schmitt scrambling to save a man's life, and watching, all the time watching, as that man's life slipped through Schmitt's fingers. Blackburne could still hear Schmitt whispering, through clenched teeth, his hands slick with red arterial blood, his face flushed, his jaw set.
'Hold on…hold on…hold on…you're not done yet…you're still in the fight…hold on.
McIntyre. Blackburne thought that the man dying under the medic's hands, while Schmitt pleaded and prayed and cursed and damn well bullied him, was a man named McIntyre…
He couldn't be sure.
Private first class Kristopher McIntyre had been eighteen years old. What had ever done to deserve Mogadishu?
There are, Blackburne realised, no insignificant losses. Every one leaves a mark.
Marks on the body, marks on the soul.
*
21st:
Its been a year. Do you believe that? One whole year, three hundred and sixty five days, since Todd Schmitt turned up on my doorstep, talking about heroes, and soldiers, and how my husband died a quiet death, after fighting the good fight till he could fight no more. How much truth was there in that, love? How quiet can a death be, when you're lying on a table, under Todd's hands, with a hole in you the size of a clenched fist? And a man fighting to bring you back, and losing you, all the same. How quiet can that possibly be…?
He promises me that he tried, to save you. I believe him. I don't believe that a man can look so sad, and still lie. I don't believe he could weep like he wept, in my arms, on that first night…I didn't think that anyone had that many tears to shed in their LIFETIME, until I started seeking out the men who made it back from Somalia; from Mogadishu…To ask them what went wrong.
Later, on that first night, which seems so far away now, we lay on the couch, and there was a strange kind of comfort in just lying there, with my feet in Todd Schmitt's lap, just watching T.V, and remembering what it felt like to feel free. Remembering what it felt like to have my lover with me, and not have to worry about where he was sleeping, or what would be the manner of his death. It felt good to be normal, Love…if only for a little while.
And I feel like I should be honest with you, my love, if only because that's all we have left, now that we're so very far away from each other. Honesty, and having no secrets between the two of us anymore. That's all we have, my angel, my dear…my LOVE.
Todd Schmitt slept on the couch, that night.
He slept on the couch every night for six months, Love, and, for a while, there was comfort in that. And then Todd Schmitt went away again, and when he came back…
When he came back, he came into my bed, Love. He's been in my bed for six months. I'm not making any apologies, Love. This is the way it is. I couldn't be a widow forever, and there's comfort, in the heat of Todd's body, in the middle of the night…in the way he makes Alice smile. He's good with her. He's so good with her. He makes me happy. He's not you, love, but at least he tries. He's on leave…he doesn't know when he'll go back. I have a new job, teaching high school English. I'm happy, Love…I think I'm falling in love with him.
But, sometimes, I am moved to wonder…Why were we so easy to leave behind? How was it so easy for you to go so far away from us? How you could you leave us, love? How could you go…?
So sometimes, I wonder…I wonder all of these things. I wonder why. I wonder why I'm still a little in love with you…
Love is a funny thing to bear.
*
Blackburne slipped further into sleep. Soft, sexual dreams of a left behind wife. He was obsessed by her smell. He did not truly understand WHY. It was not given for him to understand WHY. We rarely, any of us, understand, the way our lives turn out. He thought that, perhaps, it had to do with spending so long breathing in polluted air, and longing for any breath that was not polluted by some alien scent. That's what he thought, but he could not be sure. It was like nothing was certain anymore.
Nothing.
Not even the ground beneath his feet.
*
Todd Schmitt sank down onto his knees in a white room that he was just then beginning to make his own. He rubbed his thumb anxiously over the gold band on the third finger of his left hand. It was all so…new. How, then, should it already be coming to an end? He was twenty four years old. He was just then beginning to learn what dreaming was about. How, then, did he already feel so broken?
He folded a newspaper article away into a bottom drawer, alongside a letter sent from a place that Todd would never have believed existed, if he hadn't been there himself; if he couldn't still smell the dust on the air…if he couldn't still hear the gunshot…If he couldn't still feel the warmth of other man's blood coursing over his hands. So he folded those things away, so that, once day, the little girl who was, on that day, only two years old, would have the answer she would want. So she would know why a man like Todd Schmitt would have adopted her, when she was very young. He hoped he would have the answers she'd seek…
He felt like there were no answers. The young medic felt like he was falling apart. He had lost the woman he loved to an act of cruelty; an act of senseless, hurtful violence. For some reason, people expected him to understand the violence which had taken her from him…Because he was a solider, they reasoned, he should surely understand…
But it is difficult to understand, where there is no simple logic to a thing. Like losing your wife of bare months when a quiet maniac walks into a quiet High School in the middle of the day…walks right into an English class full of sixteen year old boys and girls…
And thirteen boys and girls end up dead, and one teenage beauty queen will never again be beautiful, and one teenage poet will realise that its difficult to write poetry when your fingers are shot away. They weren't soldiers. How were they supposed to understand the reason for suffering…? What chance did they stand, if a man like Todd Schmitt could make no sense of it?
Thirteen dead pupils. One dead English teacher. One newly married teacher…
He sighed, a tear trickling down his cheek, unnoticed, or unimportant. There was a faint tremor in the medic's hands, as he folded away those things, along with a notebook which he must have read from cover to cover a hundred times; seeking to understand her…Seeking to make more perfect the vision of her that he held in his heart.
And the wind whipped her hair and reddened her cheeks
The window squeaked and the speed of the car pushed her
And the magic of the night, coupled with the quickness of the moment,
Hurt her as the rain kissed her face
Like a lover does.
- I.B, 93.
*
The idea of home was beginning to feel like a physical presence on the horizon for Blackburne. Somewhere, out in Somalia's dust, 'home' had become an almost mythical, most holy principle. Blackburne wasn't sure, but he didn't think that this thing called 'home' had anything to do with any physical place that existed in the world, or with the idea of a wife and a child; not anymore. It was something to focus on, in Mogadishu…something to focus on, while, all around him, the battle RAGED. In that ideal, he had put all of his faith, and his hope…
But…
But there are images that Blackburne could not shake. A young man, kneeling in the dust. He was dressed in black shorts and a khaki shirt, running shoes, his hair a close shaved stubble. His head was bowed in supplication, his hands clasped in petition. A crucifix, dancing on a long silver chain.
Bring us home safe…bring us back safe…bring us home.
Todd Schmitt praying, his hands lost in a mess of blood and flesh that should have been a soldier's abdomen.
Please…God…Help me to do this. Don't you die on me. Fuck. Don't you go.
Simple things. Insignificant things.
Little things that somehow meant the world.
*
2: Vale of Sorrow
his funeral flowed like a river into eternity.
There was no stopping.
They did not stop for that open hole.
They continued on, with her leading the way forever.
-Richard Brautigan 'Sombrero Fallout'
How easy it is to make a ghost
Keith Douglas, 'How to Kill'
Finally, after so long away, incredibly, or so it seemed, Gabriel Blackburne was finally coming home. He walked down a familiar street in a sunny southern suburb, and he'd left the horrors of Mogadishu behind him. He'd left the dust far behind. He suspected, though he wasn't sure, that he'd left the part of him that had been a soldier, Lieutenant Gabriel Blackburne, behind him, back in Somalia, with the horror and the taste of the dust…And now…
And now he was just a handsome man, walking down the street with a rucksack slung over his shoulder, dressed in fresh black t-shirt and combats. He met a beautiful woman coming the other way…A beautiful woman who reminded him, in some way, of his wife…Flowers woven through her long blonde hair. A black sweater, cut low over small, high breasts. A black skirt with tassles strung out along an asymmetric hem. Metallic purple doc marten boots. Fishnet stockings. The kind of woman that, when she told people that she was married to a soldier, left those same people shocked and surprised. How could she be married to a soldier, when she seemed so free? She loved poetry, Blackburne's wife. She wrote poetry. She had a passion for words. She taught high school English. She made him very happy.
Gabriel Blackburne met a beautiful woman coming the other way. She smiled, but Blackburne felt like she looked straight through him, and out of the otherside.
Suddenly, Blackburne couldn't wait to be home…
*
Todd Schmitt was half asleep on the couch in the lounge, with Alice curled into the curve of his body, just half watching some childish thing. He had noted, as the days went by, how his grief, which had been a raw, hurting, quicksilver thing, was receding now to a sense of numbness…A thing that was almost nothing but the ABSENCE of pain. She'd been dead for nearly six months. He was only just learning how to sleep through the night.
He felt so broken.
Schmitt was half asleep, so he thought that he was dreaming, when the door opened, and a man walked into the lounge. It didn't occur to him to get up…It didn't occur to him to try and put Alice in some safe place. He didn't feel threatened. He didn't feel wrong…but still, he felt a shiver slipping down his spine.
Gabriel Blackburne stood in the doorway of the house. Which would have been fine…and it would have been good, for this was Blackburne's house, after all. He just stood in the doorway, looking at Schmitt and Alice. It didn't occur to Schmitt to be surprised. He thought that he was dreaming.
Blackburne; Lieutenant Gabriel Blackburne, standing in that doorway would have been the most right thing in the world…Blackburne would have finally come home. Only…
Only Blackburne would never come home. Schmitt knew that. Gabriel Blackburne COULD never come home…because he had already come back, a year ago. He already come back from Mogadishu…
He came back in a coffin, a week after the day that none of the survivors would ever forget.
Blackburne came home dead.
*
'Schmitt?'
It took him a moment to recognise the slender man lying on the couch, with Alice curled around his body, held close, her little blonde head resting on his stomach, his fingers twining through her hair. Todd Schmitt, the medic. Todd Schmitt, the young man with the healing hands. In his house. With his daughter. This made no sense. 'Schmitt…What's going on? Where's Indie?'
He took a step towards the couch. He watched Todd Schmitt's eyes widen, and his head begin to shake.
There was nothing right here…
*
Something alerted Schmitt to the fact that he was not dreaming; that, against all odds…all logic and all reason, Blackburne was standing in the doorway, asking after his wife. Asking after his dead wife. Enquiring after the woman who had been a wife to both of them, before she too lost her life. Indie.
Oh, my love…
He was aware of shaking his head…of wanting to speak, but knowing that there were no words…No. There were no words for this in all the world. How exactly do you face a dead man? How do you face your worst nightmare?
How do you face a man who died on your table, while you fought to save him, all the while knowing that IV fluids were not going to be enough; that you needed blood and tools and expertise that you did not have, and that all you were doing was giving him moment upon moment, and nothing that could last? Blackburne was dead. Schmitt knew this. There was no doubt of this. Schmitt had desperately tried to save him; fought and begged and PRAYED…done three cycles of CPR, before someone dragged him away from the body…because it was a body…and held him immobile, his arms at his sides, while he kicked and fought, because he had been sure that he was missing something; that here was something else that he could do. There had been nothing else that he could do; other people to save…But he hadn't been able to let go of Blackburne…not really. Which was the reason why; for all this. Why he had come to speak to Indigo Blackburne when he got back from Somalia…why it had been so easy to fall in love with her, while all his defences where down. And now he sat there, looking straight at Blackburne, knowing that he was looking at a dead man…
'Schmitt? What the HELL is going on?'
And he didn't know. He didn't know…Oh, God, how could he not know?
*
So Schmitt talked, in his pleasant, low voice which held only the slightest tremor of fear, and Blackburne listened. He didn't believe, not in the slightest, but he did listen…
He didn't understand.
Schmitt told him that Lieutenant Gabriel Blackburne; the man that Blackburne KNEW himself to be, had died in Somalia…in Mogadishu, on October 3rd, 1993.. That he'd been hit in the lower abdomen by enemy rounds, and had died of his injuries, despite the best efforts of Ranger Todd Schmitt, who had been the medic with Blackburne's chalk that night. Schmitt described fighting to save him; of doing his best, and realising that his best was NOT ENOUGH. …he spoke of SCREAMING at a superior offer to 'Get a FUCKING medevac'…But the press had been too great; there'd already been a black hawk shot down, he said, tears starting in his voice then, and no bird had come. No bird had come, and Schmitt had used all of his IVs, and then he had had no choice but to watch Blackburne's life trickle away, his blood making a dark pool which was too copious to immediately soak into the packed earth floor. Schmitt was sorry. He said. He was sorrier than he'd ever been in his entire life.
All this said in a quiet voice, his dark eyes fixed on the floor. Never looking at Blackburne, never once looking at him, but the look in his eyes was like…Like he'd seen a ghost.
Blackburne didn't believe it; he couldn't. But then his three year old little girl woke up, rubbing at tired eyes with pudgy hands. And then she looked at Blackburne; at her daddy, like she didn't know him, and she started to cry, woken too soon from sleep, and she pressed her face into Todd Schmitt's shoulder…
That hurt more than the young medic's words ever could.
*
In the end, to show Blackburne that he could not lie, Schmitt took him and Alice in a black jeep to a cemetery on the top of the hill. There, with Alice resting easily on one hip, Schmitt took Blackburne straight to a gravestone that he had visited every day, in the beginning. Then, he said, there could be no doubt.
'There.' He said, standing back a way, with Alice on his hip; her golden head unbelievably bright on his black clad shoulder.
And there it was. Unmissable. Irrevocable. Hurtful and stark and true, though Blackburne couldn't see HOW. In letters that were two inches high:
Lieutenant Gabriel Mark Blackburne.
Ranger.
Father.
Husband.
Love.
1969 – 1993
It hurt like a blow to the chest. It hurt like an actual, physical thing.
'There must be a mistake…' he said, desperate for answers…Todd Schmitt shook his head.
'There's no mistake, Blackburne…' said Todd, like a man who was also desperate for some kind of clue. 'I saw you. I was…there. Your blood was all over my hands, Blackburne.'
Blackburne shook his head, although he was coming to realise that this was true; if not the ultimate TRUTH, then some step down the road…
'Where's Indie?' He was facing Schmitt when he said this, so he saw the absolute crushing GRIEF on the young man's face. Schmitt didn't speak, just shook his head, and gestured to another grave stone, side by side with Blackburne's in a plot that they'd brought years ago, but never imagined actually USING.
Indigo Blackburne
1970-1993
And her life was light and carefree, so like a feather on a pond
She skimmed over trouble and floated on the air,
And danced in rapturous beauty.
That when she rose and flew away
Those who knew her felt their own wings stretch and lighten
With the passing breeze of her memory.
No. No. NO.
There are some things which are simply too painful to bear…
*
Later. Alice was tucked up in her little pink bed, with Schmitt's kiss on her forehead, not Blackburne's, and the two men sat at either end of the sitting room, not really looking at each other, but unable to look away, all the same.
'What are you doing here, Todd?'
And Todd told him…Told him about Indie, and something about falling in love with her; Blackburne already knew what it felt like to fall in love with a woman like her. He told him about the day they got married, over a year after Mogadishu, in a little church in the country, and how radiant Indie had looked, dressed in very pale green, because she wouldn't wear white…
And then, with tears in his voice, he told Blackburne about the man who walked into the high school where Indie had just that week started teaching English literature to sixteen year old kids, and opened fire with a gun, and a bullet had punched through the flimsy summer dress she was wearing, and broken her heart…
They were both soldiers.
Neither of them understood.
And, somehow, they came to this place, where Blackburne had hold of a handful of Todd's shirt, pushing him back against the wall, so that he was standing on tip-toes, his breath coming quickly, anger in his dark eyes.
'Go on then, Blackburne!' He spat, his voice angry. 'If you think it'll make you feel any better…If you think it'll make either of you ANY LESS DEAD, then take it away. Take it all the FUCK away. I'd thank you, if you just stop me thinking about her…about both of you…all the FUCKING time.' The young man's anger was…a living thing; incandescant. Real. He was grieving. He was in pain…
And it wouldn't bring her back. Blackburne knew that.
He wish he knew what would…
*
Haunted, once more, Blackburne dreamt dark dreams of death and dying. He dreamt of walking through the streets of Mogadishu; he recognised it, thought the guns had fallen silent. He walked the land that had, apparently, seen his death, and he could find no peace…
'Blackburne.'
He turned. Behind him, standing in a doorway, framed against the aching blueness of the coming dawn, a young man stood, a brighter kind of brightness against the light.
He was tall, he was handsome, he was young. His dark hair was a thick, heavy curtain that obscured half of his face. He was dressed in heavy, mournful black. He was pale; too pale. So very pale. Blackburne recognised his face, even if the last time he'd seen him, he'd been dying on a table under Schmitt's hands…And that long dark hair had been a fine stubble over his skull, and there had been blood trickling from the corner of his mouth…A young man, kneeling in the dust, praying to a God who seemed to have turned His back, on a day like that one.
'Hold on…hold on…hold on…you're not done yet…you're still in the fight…hold on.'
His crucifix hadn't helped him then. Now Blackburne knew his name for certain, with all the clarity that dreams bring.
Private First Class Kit McIntyre. The first man in Blackburne's chalk who lost his life to Mogadishu. Blackburne knew for certain, with all the clarity that dreaming sometimes brings.
And Kit McIntyre smiled, and his smile had nothing to do with humour, and everything to know with knowledge, and hurting, and pride, and never, ever looking away, even when the pain is simply too great a thing to bear.
Blackburne did not look away.
'What is this?' He said, quietly.
'You aren't finished yet, Blackburne.' Said Kit, his heavy hair obscuring half of his face from view. The last time Blackburne had seen him, that half of his face had been a mask of blood; like something for halloween. Blackburne didn't want to see, with a fear and a dread that was almost a primal thing, what lay behind the curtain of Kit McIntyre's hair.
'I'm not?' Kit shook his head.
'Not yet. You have to make it right, for her, Blackburne. You have to see her home. Only then, can you find what you're looking for. When they're happy. When they're complete.'
'What I'm looking for?'
'Yes…What we're all looking for, Blackburne. Proof that we once lived and breathed. Something to go ON. It isn't inherent…It has to come from somewhere…'
Something to go on?
'My…soul?' Kit nodded.
'Something like that. Something to continue. You don't just go on; you have to earn it. Its what makes it all worth something, in the end…'
Kit McIntyre, so peaceful, after Blackburne remembered him screaming and sobbing, came very close, touching Blackburne's bare arm, just above the elbow. When he moved his hand, there was a name tattooed on his sun- stained skin, just above the elbow.
'indie'
'Make it right,' Said Kit, turning, turning, turning to go. 'Make it good.' Marks on the body, marks upon the soul…if there is such a thing as souls to begin with. Blackburne was, no longer, so entirely sure.
'Wait.' Said Blackburne, and Kit waited, though he did not turn back. There is, thought Blackburne, a reason for all things…even for not turning back. 'How…did it happen?'
Mogadishu was being broken down, only to rebuild itself…All around him, the scene was changing, and yet, remaining irrevocably the same. Another narrow courtyard…Another moment, lost in that ONE eternal night.
Mogadishu. Welcome back…as if you ever got away. Welcome back to Mogadishu.
There is, realised Blackburne, a reason for even the smallest suffering.
*
He is dying…
How does he know? Because it feels like nothing at all, that's how.
He's slipping away.
He's slipping away. He is folding into himself, and everything is important; remembering how she was, but he doesn't know why. And he's forgetting how to breath, and he can't quite remember how to pray anymore.
His life is bleeding away…wasting away into Mogadishu's dust…
He knew it would end like this. He never thought it would end so SOON.
Once more…once again, he dies very alone, in the night.
*
three: making good
8.1
8.2 Love is not concerned
With whom you pray to
Or where you slept
The night you ran away
From home
8.2.1 Love is concerned
That the beating of your heart
Should kill no-one
Alice Walker
They discovered that even in the face of pain that seems unbearable, even in the face of pain that wrings the last drop of blood out of your heart, and leaves its scrimshaw tracery on the inside of your skull, life goes on. And pain grows dull, and begins to fade.
Poppy. Z. Brite. 'Lost Souls'
When Schmitt woke up, Blackburne was gone. He knew that he ought to be grateful. He knew that he ought to be glad that he would no longer be haunted by a phantom of a wish gone wrong…And yet…
And yet he couldn't quite bring himself to be glad. Because Blackburne must have had some purpose. He must have been some part of some greater plan. So Todd Schmitt couldn't truly bring himself to be grateful…couldn't quite bring himself to be glad…
Instead, he got out of bed, and he did something that he had not had the strength to do since the night they had spent in Mogadishu; when he had prayed for men's lives, and watched some of them die, all the same. Todd Schmitt sank down onto his knees at the side of the bed that he and Indie had shared for all together too short a time, and he prayed. For hope's sake, and for comfort, and for safe keeping. He prayed that Blackburne would find some peace, in the night.
'Hold on…Please…Please…Give him the strength for this. Don't break him down anymore than he's already broken. He never did anything wrong. If you can hear this, help him. Help him hold on, if you can.'
Amen.
*
Blackburne slipped quietly through the night, armed and ready, his trenchcoat flapping around him like a cloak, in the night, dressed in fresh black, with Indie's name printed on his arm, just above the elbow, and, knowing what he had to do, he still understood no better.
This wasn't right. This was beyond not right. This was FUCKED up in every way that Blackburne knew of things going wrong. This was the same kind of fucked up as going on a mission that was supposed to take a half an hour, and not making it back until the next day came. This was the same kind of fucked up as nineteen men dying, out on the dust; as SEVENTY injured. This, Blackburne reasoned, was just about as fucked up as it came.
He knew where he was headed. He knew what he was going to do. Before he went to Somalia, Blackburne had never shot a man dead. He learnt how to do that on Mogadishu's cramped streets. A baptism of fire. Now, he would do what he must. Anger did not describe it. Grief did not cover it. Sorrow did not even begin to come close.
Blackburne felt like he was a walking time bomb.
He wasn't far wrong.
*
A quiet maniac who walked into a quiet high school. A half truth. A half lie…Quiet, yes. But to call an act 'insanity' or 'madness' is to remove blame. A maniac, somehow, has some mitigating cirumstance. There was no sane reason for doing what he did…
An old friend, who was present at a second wedding, all the time wondering why it wasn't him standing at the altar; why she'd wed two soldiers, and never once look at him. She'd been radiant on her wedding day…Radiant with happiness, and…something else. Something he didn't want to think about, but couldn't push from his mind, all the same. That was closer to the truth.
He'd been so in love with her. He'd always been so in love with her, and, time and time again, she'd looked past him, and found another guy to love…to cherish…to fuck. That was the thing that hurt him the most, he thought. The idea of them fucking; of someone getting to be that close to her.
He'd been there on the evening that she'd met a man named Gabriel Blackburne. He'd seen him smile, while he watched her dancing on a table; her usual madness…her usual freedom, and then Gabriel Blackburne had asked her to leave the table behind and dance with him, and she'd accepted.
They were married for four years, and, he imagined, Blackburne fucked her every night, for all those years…
And then, foolishly, Blackburne, Mr America, All-American Ranger, took himself off to Somalia, and found himself a lonely desperate death, down in the dust. And he'd been happy then, for a while. He'd been there, in her house, when the news of Blackburne's death came. He'd comforted her. It had, he reflected, been wonderful.
He'd hope for a while…
And then Schmitt had turned up, and his hope had gone away again. There was no hope, as long as she was in love with a soldier with sad eyes, and a slight tremble in his hands. Who looked like a man haunted by visions. He looked like one of the heroes that she had loved to read about; his armour slightly tarnished, his faith in God a trembling, breaking thing, but his honour and his strength unshakeable. She had been so in love with him.
And he couldn't bear it. He felt like it was tearing him APART…
If he couldn't have her, then no-one could…and no-one would, after that afternoon, when he had walked into her English class. When she first saw him, she smiled. She had always been so trusting, and she had trusted him since childhood. Familiarity is a dangerous thing. She'd smiled until she saw the gun. Her smile stopped then. He shot her once, in the stomach, punching through that thing which Schmitt had given her that made him precious, and the he'd made her watch as he shot her pupils calmly.
He saved one more bullet for her. To ensure that no-one else would ever have her.
It had been worth it.
It had all been worth it.
*
Finally, Blackburne came to the house. Old…tumble down…More of a hide-out than a true home. He would do this quickly. He would do this RIGHT…There could be no mistakes…not when he was doing this for Schmitt and Alice, and all that they meant to each other…Not when he was doing this for Indie, and everything that they had meant to each other. It had to be perfect.
He stepped through the door, and felt a bullet punch through him like he was made of nothing but air. He knew that it should have hurt; he remember what bullets felt like, and yet, this was a dull echo of that…a vibration…a sense of impact. Nothing more.
Another bullet. Still, no pain…or, perhaps, the pain he was feeling from the bullets biting through his flesh was nothing in comparison to the pain that was already there in his head and in his heart, and that was why it didn't hurt nearly as much as it should.
The little man (Blackburne could not think of him as anything other than small, even if he stood a good inch taller than the soldier) had run out of bullets. All he could do now was wait for his death, which was inevitable, as such things surely are.
Blackburne, when he thought about it, was a merciful, compassionate man. He shot the man who had murdered his wife once in the head.
It was the least that he could do.
*
Blackburne found himself standing in a valley that stretched away from him, into the sunrise. Morning was coming to the valley, and, as the light increased, he found that he was surround by other people, of all races and periods of time, all facing the same way…all walking into the brightness of the rising sun.
He turned, to the man that he found immediately at his shoulder; a small man, his head shaven clean, wire rimmed spectacles perched on the end of his long nose, so thin that he was barely there, a number tattooed in harsh black letters on his spindly forearm.
'What is this place?' said Blackburne, who had been a soldier, and had seen many things, in his life…Had suffered, although he would not say that had not also CAUSED suffering, in his life.
'Welcome to the Vale.' Said the small Jewish man, who had survived the Holocaust; who had seen great suffering, and never done another thing any wrong, his entire life through.
'The Vale?' The man nodded, his glasses sliding further down from their precarious perch.
'We have suffered enough, it seems. Yahweh has determined that we, at last, will go the distance, and see the City.'
Blackburne thought that it had to do with souls, and seeing enough, and earning the right to no more. He had suffered. He had earned that right. He felt…complete. It was a comfort, standing there, to know that, if they did not get to be happy, then, at least, they got to be complete.
A crow winged its way towards the sunrise, putting the night, and the travellers, behind it like they were nothing. That was all there was really. Just Blackburne and the small Jewish man, the burning sky, and the suggestion of a shining city, far to the east. Finally, Blackburne knew, under that shattered sky, his newly found soul would find its rest.
Finally…FINALLY, he could leave Mogadishu far behind him. Farewell to Mogadishu, now you are allowed to go.
So that was what the end felt like. Blackburne stood there, and watched the crow, waiting for the end of the world.
He began to walk, slowly, towards the rising sun.
*
Epilogue:
Sometimes, though the universe is cruel, and unforgiving, we earn the right to a little happiness…
There is a woman, in his dream. There is a hillside, and this woman stands on the hillside. She is young, little more than a girl, but old beyond her years, somehow. Her golden hair is wrapped in a gypsy coloured scarf, the tassles falling across the smooth curve of her neck.
Even after all this time, she takes his breath away…
Todd Schmitt woke suddenly. There was quiet in the house, which there had not been a moment before. A moment's quiet; a second's pause, and then the shrill wail tore through the house once again. Todd kicked his legs over the edge of the bed, then, on second thoughts, he leaned back, and kissed Indie's cheek. She stirred in her sleep, but did not wake as Todd went to see to the child that they had made, dreaming dark but fond dreams of a dead husband; the sorrow of their parting would have torn her apart, if Todd Schmitt had not come along…She had shed so many tears.
Never mind.
We go on.
*
'He had done his best.
It wasn't enough.
He fought his hardest…
What else can you say?
He was an American.'
- 'Sombrero Fallout', Richard Brautigan.
It was a day the door closed
And she felt the breeze and heard the click
And she felt nostalgic for what had passed
She almost forgot, which was her way,
To draw the curtain ahead.
Chapter close, Ashira
[NOTE: All the poetry that was 'written' by Indie Blackburne was actually written by a remarkably talented person I know, who goes by the name of Ashira ( Thanks for letting me use it, honey…It suited Indie down to the ground. I just wish she'd been a bigger part of the story ; )]
dedicated to good old Allerhaene of Hopeless Causes, who hasn't had a story for a while, to Ross, who continues to mean a lot, even if we do have our…shaky moments, and to the ladies sitting at the table, because a start is a start…
Raen. 13th March, 2002.
1 This story is based, so that you know, around the principle of 'soul making'…that none of us are born with souls, and must, instead, earn them, through suffering and prayer. During a conversation on the forum one night, I had the idea implanted in my head about how a soldier goes about earning his soul. I'd also just seen Black Hawk Down. This is what comes of giving me ideas when I've just sat through a great movie. ( Enjoy. Raen.
Nothing in this story is intended to cause offence.
2 'A minstrel boy
to the war has gone
in the ranks of the dead
you'll find him…'
Minstrel Boy – trad. Irish, included on the Black Hawk Down OST.
'The equation of the soul is written in physics both far simpler and more complicated than any men have ever devised'
- Steve Errickson.
3
4 One: Welcome to Mogadishu.
5
6 And, if this must be the end, my love, then be well, my love…Remember me.
7 *
8 He is dying…
How does he know? Because it feels like nothing at all, that's how.
He is dying, alone, in a foreign night. He is afraid. He is so afraid. Why wouldn't he be? But still, it feels like nothing at all. Maybe that's the most frightening thing; that, because he cannot feel, he cannot account for the parts of him that are missing, and the parts of him that are whole. He feels like he's made of air, or light…That kind of nothingness…
He doesn't know if he's been blown to pieces…He hopes not. He wants her to be able to recognise him enough to want to kiss him goodbye, when the time comes.
He's slipping away.
He's slipping away. He is folding into himself, and everything is important; remembering how she was, but he doesn't know why. And he's forgetting how to breath, and he can't quite remember how to pray anymore. And she's there, right beside him…
His life is bleeding away…wasting away into Mogadishu's dust…
He knew it would end like this. He never thought it would end so SOON.
He dies in the night.
He dies very alone.
*
You are strong, my love. I have no fear for you, from this day.
You will do well, my love, with or without me. DO only these things: take care of my daughter; I know she's yours, more than mine, but she's my only…Give her daddy's kiss goodnight. And live well, my love. Be always well.
Forgive me, my love, but never forget me…and do not let me make you sad.
My love.
*
one:
Lieutenant Gabriel Blackburne stepped down off the plane. The sun felt good on the back of his head. It felt good to be home. Oh, God…It felt good. He hadn't realised, before he'd gone away, how much being that far from home; from the things you loved, would change you. He felt changed; in all the places that mattered. Physically, the twenty four year old man was much the same as he'd been when he'd stepped on a similar plane, nearly six months before. He was a tall man, not heavily built, but in no way weak, his dark hair shaved to a close stubble over his skull, dressed casually in combats and a t-shirt…Every inch the soldier. Every inch of him in control.
He had never lost control. Then again, he had never had to shoot another man dead before. Mogadishu had changed him. Mogadishu had changed them all.
*
But Gabriel Blackburne felt different; he'd never before been so desperate to be home, with his wife, Indie, and the daughter that she'd already had when he married her; the child that he'd raised as his own, Alice. Never ever before had he been so desperate to see them before. Never before had he been on a mission that had been so difficult…So hurtful on the soul. There had been moments, of which he was brutally, mortally ashamed, now that he had his boots back on friendly soil, when he'd wished that he'd never gone to the Mog…wished that that conflict had never touched him. About the same time as his chalk lost their third man to Somali guns.
He'd wished himself far, far away.
Gabriel Blackburne had always been a rational man.
*
21st…
Oh, my love…how did we come to this, my love?
I knew the danger. I knew the risks of loving a soldier; the best of the best of the brightest. I knew all those things, and yet, I can't help but wonder why they were fighting someone else's civil war, a million miles from home? He's so lost, and I'm so broken…
Todd Schmitt was here today. I opened the door, and there was a man on my doorstep, who I couldn't place for a moment. He's a little taller than my husband, with close shaven brown hair, and dark blue eyes. I've always like Todd; he's handsome…he's kind…He cared for my husband. But, when he turned up here today, he looked like Death had settled on him. He can't be more than twenty two. There were dark circles around his eyes, and he looked like he hadn't slept in years. He came to tell me that my husband fought well, and died a hero, in Mogadishu, wherever the hell that is. I want to believe him. Oh, God, Love, I want to believe him…I want to believe you were a hero.
I held him; Todd Schmitt, while he wept, and begged me to believe that he tried to save you…and I believe him, when I see the look in his eyes, and the tremble in his healing hands. But, I told him, you're a medic, Todd…you're not God…None of us are. If it was his time to go…
I always thought you were immortal, Love. So, by the look of him, did Todd. You were one of those men who seemed invincible, just because you were so strong…Because the world was more…right…with you in it. I'm ashamed, Love, but it was easier, while I held Todd in my arms…if only because he reminded me of what it felt like to hold you close. He's asleep now, on the couch. He doesn't look any older than our daughter. Are they sending babies to war now, my love?
Just before he fell asleep, I looked at Todd, and I said, 'Why did they send you there, to die in vain?' He was so angry with me, Love…So angry…He wouldn't look at me. 'Don't ever say they died in vain,' he said, weeping again. 'Saying that is the same as saying that they died for nothing…and I can't think about it like that…'
Neither can I…
*
Your letter arrived today. There's some comfort in that, at least. A letter in your handwriting, to read and read until I don't need the words anymore, and a message on the machine that may or may not be your voice…
'we're going, baby…we're going. Its O.K…I'll call you, when I get back. I love you. I love you. Goodbye baby…I'll call you when I get back. I love you…'
What, my love, will you do for me when you never come back?
*
You are strong, my love. I have no fear for you, from this day.
You will do well, my love, with or without me.
And, oh, my love, however did we come to this?
*
So Gabriel Blackburne was coming home. Finally, he was coming HOME, after so long away. And there was an enduring sense that, somehow, Mogadishu had not won. That there was still some part of him that was right and human and good, despite all the horror. Despite the suffering he had seen; on both sides of the line, there was some part of him that was untouched; as it had always been. In that, he had to put his faith.
America felt good on Blackburne's skin. That was a funny way to put it, but it was a funny kind of feeling, which he would have found difficult to put into words, if pushed. It was like…
…The sun here was hot, but it did not seek to burn him dry…
…There was dust on the road, but it did not flood his nose and mouth, until he could taste only dust.
…The sky here was still BLUE, but an innocent, harmless blue…and not the aching, throbbing blue of human eyes waiting for something to hurt them.
It was good, to be on the way home at last.
*
On the long train ride home, Blackburne slumbered in an empty carriage. Haunted, he dreamt dark dreams of blood and gore, and of riding a helicopter into the depths of a City that was Dante's hell, if such a thing ever found a place in the world. Thick plumes of black smoke, pushing hard against that aching blue sky.
Mogadishu. Welcome back…as if you ever got away. Welcome back to Mogadishu.
If there is a hell…
The memory of watching Todd Schmitt scrambling to save a man's life, and watching, all the time watching, as that man's life slipped through Schmitt's fingers. Blackburne could still hear Schmitt whispering, through clenched teeth, his hands slick with red arterial blood, his face flushed, his jaw set.
'Hold on…hold on…hold on…you're not done yet…you're still in the fight…hold on.
McIntyre. Blackburne thought that the man dying under the medic's hands, while Schmitt pleaded and prayed and cursed and damn well bullied him, was a man named McIntyre…
He couldn't be sure.
Private first class Kristopher McIntyre had been eighteen years old. What had ever done to deserve Mogadishu?
There are, Blackburne realised, no insignificant losses. Every one leaves a mark.
Marks on the body, marks on the soul.
*
21st:
Its been a year. Do you believe that? One whole year, three hundred and sixty five days, since Todd Schmitt turned up on my doorstep, talking about heroes, and soldiers, and how my husband died a quiet death, after fighting the good fight till he could fight no more. How much truth was there in that, love? How quiet can a death be, when you're lying on a table, under Todd's hands, with a hole in you the size of a clenched fist? And a man fighting to bring you back, and losing you, all the same. How quiet can that possibly be…?
He promises me that he tried, to save you. I believe him. I don't believe that a man can look so sad, and still lie. I don't believe he could weep like he wept, in my arms, on that first night…I didn't think that anyone had that many tears to shed in their LIFETIME, until I started seeking out the men who made it back from Somalia; from Mogadishu…To ask them what went wrong.
Later, on that first night, which seems so far away now, we lay on the couch, and there was a strange kind of comfort in just lying there, with my feet in Todd Schmitt's lap, just watching T.V, and remembering what it felt like to feel free. Remembering what it felt like to have my lover with me, and not have to worry about where he was sleeping, or what would be the manner of his death. It felt good to be normal, Love…if only for a little while.
And I feel like I should be honest with you, my love, if only because that's all we have left, now that we're so very far away from each other. Honesty, and having no secrets between the two of us anymore. That's all we have, my angel, my dear…my LOVE.
Todd Schmitt slept on the couch, that night.
He slept on the couch every night for six months, Love, and, for a while, there was comfort in that. And then Todd Schmitt went away again, and when he came back…
When he came back, he came into my bed, Love. He's been in my bed for six months. I'm not making any apologies, Love. This is the way it is. I couldn't be a widow forever, and there's comfort, in the heat of Todd's body, in the middle of the night…in the way he makes Alice smile. He's good with her. He's so good with her. He makes me happy. He's not you, love, but at least he tries. He's on leave…he doesn't know when he'll go back. I have a new job, teaching high school English. I'm happy, Love…I think I'm falling in love with him.
But, sometimes, I am moved to wonder…Why were we so easy to leave behind? How was it so easy for you to go so far away from us? How you could you leave us, love? How could you go…?
So sometimes, I wonder…I wonder all of these things. I wonder why. I wonder why I'm still a little in love with you…
Love is a funny thing to bear.
*
Blackburne slipped further into sleep. Soft, sexual dreams of a left behind wife. He was obsessed by her smell. He did not truly understand WHY. It was not given for him to understand WHY. We rarely, any of us, understand, the way our lives turn out. He thought that, perhaps, it had to do with spending so long breathing in polluted air, and longing for any breath that was not polluted by some alien scent. That's what he thought, but he could not be sure. It was like nothing was certain anymore.
Nothing.
Not even the ground beneath his feet.
*
Todd Schmitt sank down onto his knees in a white room that he was just then beginning to make his own. He rubbed his thumb anxiously over the gold band on the third finger of his left hand. It was all so…new. How, then, should it already be coming to an end? He was twenty four years old. He was just then beginning to learn what dreaming was about. How, then, did he already feel so broken?
He folded a newspaper article away into a bottom drawer, alongside a letter sent from a place that Todd would never have believed existed, if he hadn't been there himself; if he couldn't still smell the dust on the air…if he couldn't still hear the gunshot…If he couldn't still feel the warmth of other man's blood coursing over his hands. So he folded those things away, so that, once day, the little girl who was, on that day, only two years old, would have the answer she would want. So she would know why a man like Todd Schmitt would have adopted her, when she was very young. He hoped he would have the answers she'd seek…
He felt like there were no answers. The young medic felt like he was falling apart. He had lost the woman he loved to an act of cruelty; an act of senseless, hurtful violence. For some reason, people expected him to understand the violence which had taken her from him…Because he was a solider, they reasoned, he should surely understand…
But it is difficult to understand, where there is no simple logic to a thing. Like losing your wife of bare months when a quiet maniac walks into a quiet High School in the middle of the day…walks right into an English class full of sixteen year old boys and girls…
And thirteen boys and girls end up dead, and one teenage beauty queen will never again be beautiful, and one teenage poet will realise that its difficult to write poetry when your fingers are shot away. They weren't soldiers. How were they supposed to understand the reason for suffering…? What chance did they stand, if a man like Todd Schmitt could make no sense of it?
Thirteen dead pupils. One dead English teacher. One newly married teacher…
He sighed, a tear trickling down his cheek, unnoticed, or unimportant. There was a faint tremor in the medic's hands, as he folded away those things, along with a notebook which he must have read from cover to cover a hundred times; seeking to understand her…Seeking to make more perfect the vision of her that he held in his heart.
And the wind whipped her hair and reddened her cheeks
The window squeaked and the speed of the car pushed her
And the magic of the night, coupled with the quickness of the moment,
Hurt her as the rain kissed her face
Like a lover does.
- I.B, 93.
*
The idea of home was beginning to feel like a physical presence on the horizon for Blackburne. Somewhere, out in Somalia's dust, 'home' had become an almost mythical, most holy principle. Blackburne wasn't sure, but he didn't think that this thing called 'home' had anything to do with any physical place that existed in the world, or with the idea of a wife and a child; not anymore. It was something to focus on, in Mogadishu…something to focus on, while, all around him, the battle RAGED. In that ideal, he had put all of his faith, and his hope…
But…
But there are images that Blackburne could not shake. A young man, kneeling in the dust. He was dressed in black shorts and a khaki shirt, running shoes, his hair a close shaved stubble. His head was bowed in supplication, his hands clasped in petition. A crucifix, dancing on a long silver chain.
Bring us home safe…bring us back safe…bring us home.
Todd Schmitt praying, his hands lost in a mess of blood and flesh that should have been a soldier's abdomen.
Please…God…Help me to do this. Don't you die on me. Fuck. Don't you go.
Simple things. Insignificant things.
Little things that somehow meant the world.
*
2: Vale of Sorrow
his funeral flowed like a river into eternity.
There was no stopping.
They did not stop for that open hole.
They continued on, with her leading the way forever.
-Richard Brautigan 'Sombrero Fallout'
How easy it is to make a ghost
Keith Douglas, 'How to Kill'
Finally, after so long away, incredibly, or so it seemed, Gabriel Blackburne was finally coming home. He walked down a familiar street in a sunny southern suburb, and he'd left the horrors of Mogadishu behind him. He'd left the dust far behind. He suspected, though he wasn't sure, that he'd left the part of him that had been a soldier, Lieutenant Gabriel Blackburne, behind him, back in Somalia, with the horror and the taste of the dust…And now…
And now he was just a handsome man, walking down the street with a rucksack slung over his shoulder, dressed in fresh black t-shirt and combats. He met a beautiful woman coming the other way…A beautiful woman who reminded him, in some way, of his wife…Flowers woven through her long blonde hair. A black sweater, cut low over small, high breasts. A black skirt with tassles strung out along an asymmetric hem. Metallic purple doc marten boots. Fishnet stockings. The kind of woman that, when she told people that she was married to a soldier, left those same people shocked and surprised. How could she be married to a soldier, when she seemed so free? She loved poetry, Blackburne's wife. She wrote poetry. She had a passion for words. She taught high school English. She made him very happy.
Gabriel Blackburne met a beautiful woman coming the other way. She smiled, but Blackburne felt like she looked straight through him, and out of the otherside.
Suddenly, Blackburne couldn't wait to be home…
*
Todd Schmitt was half asleep on the couch in the lounge, with Alice curled into the curve of his body, just half watching some childish thing. He had noted, as the days went by, how his grief, which had been a raw, hurting, quicksilver thing, was receding now to a sense of numbness…A thing that was almost nothing but the ABSENCE of pain. She'd been dead for nearly six months. He was only just learning how to sleep through the night.
He felt so broken.
Schmitt was half asleep, so he thought that he was dreaming, when the door opened, and a man walked into the lounge. It didn't occur to him to get up…It didn't occur to him to try and put Alice in some safe place. He didn't feel threatened. He didn't feel wrong…but still, he felt a shiver slipping down his spine.
Gabriel Blackburne stood in the doorway of the house. Which would have been fine…and it would have been good, for this was Blackburne's house, after all. He just stood in the doorway, looking at Schmitt and Alice. It didn't occur to Schmitt to be surprised. He thought that he was dreaming.
Blackburne; Lieutenant Gabriel Blackburne, standing in that doorway would have been the most right thing in the world…Blackburne would have finally come home. Only…
Only Blackburne would never come home. Schmitt knew that. Gabriel Blackburne COULD never come home…because he had already come back, a year ago. He already come back from Mogadishu…
He came back in a coffin, a week after the day that none of the survivors would ever forget.
Blackburne came home dead.
*
'Schmitt?'
It took him a moment to recognise the slender man lying on the couch, with Alice curled around his body, held close, her little blonde head resting on his stomach, his fingers twining through her hair. Todd Schmitt, the medic. Todd Schmitt, the young man with the healing hands. In his house. With his daughter. This made no sense. 'Schmitt…What's going on? Where's Indie?'
He took a step towards the couch. He watched Todd Schmitt's eyes widen, and his head begin to shake.
There was nothing right here…
*
Something alerted Schmitt to the fact that he was not dreaming; that, against all odds…all logic and all reason, Blackburne was standing in the doorway, asking after his wife. Asking after his dead wife. Enquiring after the woman who had been a wife to both of them, before she too lost her life. Indie.
Oh, my love…
He was aware of shaking his head…of wanting to speak, but knowing that there were no words…No. There were no words for this in all the world. How exactly do you face a dead man? How do you face your worst nightmare?
How do you face a man who died on your table, while you fought to save him, all the while knowing that IV fluids were not going to be enough; that you needed blood and tools and expertise that you did not have, and that all you were doing was giving him moment upon moment, and nothing that could last? Blackburne was dead. Schmitt knew this. There was no doubt of this. Schmitt had desperately tried to save him; fought and begged and PRAYED…done three cycles of CPR, before someone dragged him away from the body…because it was a body…and held him immobile, his arms at his sides, while he kicked and fought, because he had been sure that he was missing something; that here was something else that he could do. There had been nothing else that he could do; other people to save…But he hadn't been able to let go of Blackburne…not really. Which was the reason why; for all this. Why he had come to speak to Indigo Blackburne when he got back from Somalia…why it had been so easy to fall in love with her, while all his defences where down. And now he sat there, looking straight at Blackburne, knowing that he was looking at a dead man…
'Schmitt? What the HELL is going on?'
And he didn't know. He didn't know…Oh, God, how could he not know?
*
So Schmitt talked, in his pleasant, low voice which held only the slightest tremor of fear, and Blackburne listened. He didn't believe, not in the slightest, but he did listen…
He didn't understand.
Schmitt told him that Lieutenant Gabriel Blackburne; the man that Blackburne KNEW himself to be, had died in Somalia…in Mogadishu, on October 3rd, 1993.. That he'd been hit in the lower abdomen by enemy rounds, and had died of his injuries, despite the best efforts of Ranger Todd Schmitt, who had been the medic with Blackburne's chalk that night. Schmitt described fighting to save him; of doing his best, and realising that his best was NOT ENOUGH. …he spoke of SCREAMING at a superior offer to 'Get a FUCKING medevac'…But the press had been too great; there'd already been a black hawk shot down, he said, tears starting in his voice then, and no bird had come. No bird had come, and Schmitt had used all of his IVs, and then he had had no choice but to watch Blackburne's life trickle away, his blood making a dark pool which was too copious to immediately soak into the packed earth floor. Schmitt was sorry. He said. He was sorrier than he'd ever been in his entire life.
All this said in a quiet voice, his dark eyes fixed on the floor. Never looking at Blackburne, never once looking at him, but the look in his eyes was like…Like he'd seen a ghost.
Blackburne didn't believe it; he couldn't. But then his three year old little girl woke up, rubbing at tired eyes with pudgy hands. And then she looked at Blackburne; at her daddy, like she didn't know him, and she started to cry, woken too soon from sleep, and she pressed her face into Todd Schmitt's shoulder…
That hurt more than the young medic's words ever could.
*
In the end, to show Blackburne that he could not lie, Schmitt took him and Alice in a black jeep to a cemetery on the top of the hill. There, with Alice resting easily on one hip, Schmitt took Blackburne straight to a gravestone that he had visited every day, in the beginning. Then, he said, there could be no doubt.
'There.' He said, standing back a way, with Alice on his hip; her golden head unbelievably bright on his black clad shoulder.
And there it was. Unmissable. Irrevocable. Hurtful and stark and true, though Blackburne couldn't see HOW. In letters that were two inches high:
Lieutenant Gabriel Mark Blackburne.
Ranger.
Father.
Husband.
Love.
1969 – 1993
It hurt like a blow to the chest. It hurt like an actual, physical thing.
'There must be a mistake…' he said, desperate for answers…Todd Schmitt shook his head.
'There's no mistake, Blackburne…' said Todd, like a man who was also desperate for some kind of clue. 'I saw you. I was…there. Your blood was all over my hands, Blackburne.'
Blackburne shook his head, although he was coming to realise that this was true; if not the ultimate TRUTH, then some step down the road…
'Where's Indie?' He was facing Schmitt when he said this, so he saw the absolute crushing GRIEF on the young man's face. Schmitt didn't speak, just shook his head, and gestured to another grave stone, side by side with Blackburne's in a plot that they'd brought years ago, but never imagined actually USING.
Indigo Blackburne
1970-1993
And her life was light and carefree, so like a feather on a pond
She skimmed over trouble and floated on the air,
And danced in rapturous beauty.
That when she rose and flew away
Those who knew her felt their own wings stretch and lighten
With the passing breeze of her memory.
No. No. NO.
There are some things which are simply too painful to bear…
*
Later. Alice was tucked up in her little pink bed, with Schmitt's kiss on her forehead, not Blackburne's, and the two men sat at either end of the sitting room, not really looking at each other, but unable to look away, all the same.
'What are you doing here, Todd?'
And Todd told him…Told him about Indie, and something about falling in love with her; Blackburne already knew what it felt like to fall in love with a woman like her. He told him about the day they got married, over a year after Mogadishu, in a little church in the country, and how radiant Indie had looked, dressed in very pale green, because she wouldn't wear white…
And then, with tears in his voice, he told Blackburne about the man who walked into the high school where Indie had just that week started teaching English literature to sixteen year old kids, and opened fire with a gun, and a bullet had punched through the flimsy summer dress she was wearing, and broken her heart…
They were both soldiers.
Neither of them understood.
And, somehow, they came to this place, where Blackburne had hold of a handful of Todd's shirt, pushing him back against the wall, so that he was standing on tip-toes, his breath coming quickly, anger in his dark eyes.
'Go on then, Blackburne!' He spat, his voice angry. 'If you think it'll make you feel any better…If you think it'll make either of you ANY LESS DEAD, then take it away. Take it all the FUCK away. I'd thank you, if you just stop me thinking about her…about both of you…all the FUCKING time.' The young man's anger was…a living thing; incandescant. Real. He was grieving. He was in pain…
And it wouldn't bring her back. Blackburne knew that.
He wish he knew what would…
*
Haunted, once more, Blackburne dreamt dark dreams of death and dying. He dreamt of walking through the streets of Mogadishu; he recognised it, thought the guns had fallen silent. He walked the land that had, apparently, seen his death, and he could find no peace…
'Blackburne.'
He turned. Behind him, standing in a doorway, framed against the aching blueness of the coming dawn, a young man stood, a brighter kind of brightness against the light.
He was tall, he was handsome, he was young. His dark hair was a thick, heavy curtain that obscured half of his face. He was dressed in heavy, mournful black. He was pale; too pale. So very pale. Blackburne recognised his face, even if the last time he'd seen him, he'd been dying on a table under Schmitt's hands…And that long dark hair had been a fine stubble over his skull, and there had been blood trickling from the corner of his mouth…A young man, kneeling in the dust, praying to a God who seemed to have turned His back, on a day like that one.
'Hold on…hold on…hold on…you're not done yet…you're still in the fight…hold on.'
His crucifix hadn't helped him then. Now Blackburne knew his name for certain, with all the clarity that dreams bring.
Private First Class Kit McIntyre. The first man in Blackburne's chalk who lost his life to Mogadishu. Blackburne knew for certain, with all the clarity that dreaming sometimes brings.
And Kit McIntyre smiled, and his smile had nothing to do with humour, and everything to know with knowledge, and hurting, and pride, and never, ever looking away, even when the pain is simply too great a thing to bear.
Blackburne did not look away.
'What is this?' He said, quietly.
'You aren't finished yet, Blackburne.' Said Kit, his heavy hair obscuring half of his face from view. The last time Blackburne had seen him, that half of his face had been a mask of blood; like something for halloween. Blackburne didn't want to see, with a fear and a dread that was almost a primal thing, what lay behind the curtain of Kit McIntyre's hair.
'I'm not?' Kit shook his head.
'Not yet. You have to make it right, for her, Blackburne. You have to see her home. Only then, can you find what you're looking for. When they're happy. When they're complete.'
'What I'm looking for?'
'Yes…What we're all looking for, Blackburne. Proof that we once lived and breathed. Something to go ON. It isn't inherent…It has to come from somewhere…'
Something to go on?
'My…soul?' Kit nodded.
'Something like that. Something to continue. You don't just go on; you have to earn it. Its what makes it all worth something, in the end…'
Kit McIntyre, so peaceful, after Blackburne remembered him screaming and sobbing, came very close, touching Blackburne's bare arm, just above the elbow. When he moved his hand, there was a name tattooed on his sun- stained skin, just above the elbow.
'indie'
'Make it right,' Said Kit, turning, turning, turning to go. 'Make it good.' Marks on the body, marks upon the soul…if there is such a thing as souls to begin with. Blackburne was, no longer, so entirely sure.
'Wait.' Said Blackburne, and Kit waited, though he did not turn back. There is, thought Blackburne, a reason for all things…even for not turning back. 'How…did it happen?'
Mogadishu was being broken down, only to rebuild itself…All around him, the scene was changing, and yet, remaining irrevocably the same. Another narrow courtyard…Another moment, lost in that ONE eternal night.
Mogadishu. Welcome back…as if you ever got away. Welcome back to Mogadishu.
There is, realised Blackburne, a reason for even the smallest suffering.
*
He is dying…
How does he know? Because it feels like nothing at all, that's how.
He's slipping away.
He's slipping away. He is folding into himself, and everything is important; remembering how she was, but he doesn't know why. And he's forgetting how to breath, and he can't quite remember how to pray anymore.
His life is bleeding away…wasting away into Mogadishu's dust…
He knew it would end like this. He never thought it would end so SOON.
Once more…once again, he dies very alone, in the night.
*
three: making good
8.1
8.2 Love is not concerned
With whom you pray to
Or where you slept
The night you ran away
From home
8.2.1 Love is concerned
That the beating of your heart
Should kill no-one
Alice Walker
They discovered that even in the face of pain that seems unbearable, even in the face of pain that wrings the last drop of blood out of your heart, and leaves its scrimshaw tracery on the inside of your skull, life goes on. And pain grows dull, and begins to fade.
Poppy. Z. Brite. 'Lost Souls'
When Schmitt woke up, Blackburne was gone. He knew that he ought to be grateful. He knew that he ought to be glad that he would no longer be haunted by a phantom of a wish gone wrong…And yet…
And yet he couldn't quite bring himself to be glad. Because Blackburne must have had some purpose. He must have been some part of some greater plan. So Todd Schmitt couldn't truly bring himself to be grateful…couldn't quite bring himself to be glad…
Instead, he got out of bed, and he did something that he had not had the strength to do since the night they had spent in Mogadishu; when he had prayed for men's lives, and watched some of them die, all the same. Todd Schmitt sank down onto his knees at the side of the bed that he and Indie had shared for all together too short a time, and he prayed. For hope's sake, and for comfort, and for safe keeping. He prayed that Blackburne would find some peace, in the night.
'Hold on…Please…Please…Give him the strength for this. Don't break him down anymore than he's already broken. He never did anything wrong. If you can hear this, help him. Help him hold on, if you can.'
Amen.
*
Blackburne slipped quietly through the night, armed and ready, his trenchcoat flapping around him like a cloak, in the night, dressed in fresh black, with Indie's name printed on his arm, just above the elbow, and, knowing what he had to do, he still understood no better.
This wasn't right. This was beyond not right. This was FUCKED up in every way that Blackburne knew of things going wrong. This was the same kind of fucked up as going on a mission that was supposed to take a half an hour, and not making it back until the next day came. This was the same kind of fucked up as nineteen men dying, out on the dust; as SEVENTY injured. This, Blackburne reasoned, was just about as fucked up as it came.
He knew where he was headed. He knew what he was going to do. Before he went to Somalia, Blackburne had never shot a man dead. He learnt how to do that on Mogadishu's cramped streets. A baptism of fire. Now, he would do what he must. Anger did not describe it. Grief did not cover it. Sorrow did not even begin to come close.
Blackburne felt like he was a walking time bomb.
He wasn't far wrong.
*
A quiet maniac who walked into a quiet high school. A half truth. A half lie…Quiet, yes. But to call an act 'insanity' or 'madness' is to remove blame. A maniac, somehow, has some mitigating cirumstance. There was no sane reason for doing what he did…
An old friend, who was present at a second wedding, all the time wondering why it wasn't him standing at the altar; why she'd wed two soldiers, and never once look at him. She'd been radiant on her wedding day…Radiant with happiness, and…something else. Something he didn't want to think about, but couldn't push from his mind, all the same. That was closer to the truth.
He'd been so in love with her. He'd always been so in love with her, and, time and time again, she'd looked past him, and found another guy to love…to cherish…to fuck. That was the thing that hurt him the most, he thought. The idea of them fucking; of someone getting to be that close to her.
He'd been there on the evening that she'd met a man named Gabriel Blackburne. He'd seen him smile, while he watched her dancing on a table; her usual madness…her usual freedom, and then Gabriel Blackburne had asked her to leave the table behind and dance with him, and she'd accepted.
They were married for four years, and, he imagined, Blackburne fucked her every night, for all those years…
And then, foolishly, Blackburne, Mr America, All-American Ranger, took himself off to Somalia, and found himself a lonely desperate death, down in the dust. And he'd been happy then, for a while. He'd been there, in her house, when the news of Blackburne's death came. He'd comforted her. It had, he reflected, been wonderful.
He'd hope for a while…
And then Schmitt had turned up, and his hope had gone away again. There was no hope, as long as she was in love with a soldier with sad eyes, and a slight tremble in his hands. Who looked like a man haunted by visions. He looked like one of the heroes that she had loved to read about; his armour slightly tarnished, his faith in God a trembling, breaking thing, but his honour and his strength unshakeable. She had been so in love with him.
And he couldn't bear it. He felt like it was tearing him APART…
If he couldn't have her, then no-one could…and no-one would, after that afternoon, when he had walked into her English class. When she first saw him, she smiled. She had always been so trusting, and she had trusted him since childhood. Familiarity is a dangerous thing. She'd smiled until she saw the gun. Her smile stopped then. He shot her once, in the stomach, punching through that thing which Schmitt had given her that made him precious, and the he'd made her watch as he shot her pupils calmly.
He saved one more bullet for her. To ensure that no-one else would ever have her.
It had been worth it.
It had all been worth it.
*
Finally, Blackburne came to the house. Old…tumble down…More of a hide-out than a true home. He would do this quickly. He would do this RIGHT…There could be no mistakes…not when he was doing this for Schmitt and Alice, and all that they meant to each other…Not when he was doing this for Indie, and everything that they had meant to each other. It had to be perfect.
He stepped through the door, and felt a bullet punch through him like he was made of nothing but air. He knew that it should have hurt; he remember what bullets felt like, and yet, this was a dull echo of that…a vibration…a sense of impact. Nothing more.
Another bullet. Still, no pain…or, perhaps, the pain he was feeling from the bullets biting through his flesh was nothing in comparison to the pain that was already there in his head and in his heart, and that was why it didn't hurt nearly as much as it should.
The little man (Blackburne could not think of him as anything other than small, even if he stood a good inch taller than the soldier) had run out of bullets. All he could do now was wait for his death, which was inevitable, as such things surely are.
Blackburne, when he thought about it, was a merciful, compassionate man. He shot the man who had murdered his wife once in the head.
It was the least that he could do.
*
Blackburne found himself standing in a valley that stretched away from him, into the sunrise. Morning was coming to the valley, and, as the light increased, he found that he was surround by other people, of all races and periods of time, all facing the same way…all walking into the brightness of the rising sun.
He turned, to the man that he found immediately at his shoulder; a small man, his head shaven clean, wire rimmed spectacles perched on the end of his long nose, so thin that he was barely there, a number tattooed in harsh black letters on his spindly forearm.
'What is this place?' said Blackburne, who had been a soldier, and had seen many things, in his life…Had suffered, although he would not say that had not also CAUSED suffering, in his life.
'Welcome to the Vale.' Said the small Jewish man, who had survived the Holocaust; who had seen great suffering, and never done another thing any wrong, his entire life through.
'The Vale?' The man nodded, his glasses sliding further down from their precarious perch.
'We have suffered enough, it seems. Yahweh has determined that we, at last, will go the distance, and see the City.'
Blackburne thought that it had to do with souls, and seeing enough, and earning the right to no more. He had suffered. He had earned that right. He felt…complete. It was a comfort, standing there, to know that, if they did not get to be happy, then, at least, they got to be complete.
A crow winged its way towards the sunrise, putting the night, and the travellers, behind it like they were nothing. That was all there was really. Just Blackburne and the small Jewish man, the burning sky, and the suggestion of a shining city, far to the east. Finally, Blackburne knew, under that shattered sky, his newly found soul would find its rest.
Finally…FINALLY, he could leave Mogadishu far behind him. Farewell to Mogadishu, now you are allowed to go.
So that was what the end felt like. Blackburne stood there, and watched the crow, waiting for the end of the world.
He began to walk, slowly, towards the rising sun.
*
Epilogue:
Sometimes, though the universe is cruel, and unforgiving, we earn the right to a little happiness…
There is a woman, in his dream. There is a hillside, and this woman stands on the hillside. She is young, little more than a girl, but old beyond her years, somehow. Her golden hair is wrapped in a gypsy coloured scarf, the tassles falling across the smooth curve of her neck.
Even after all this time, she takes his breath away…
Todd Schmitt woke suddenly. There was quiet in the house, which there had not been a moment before. A moment's quiet; a second's pause, and then the shrill wail tore through the house once again. Todd kicked his legs over the edge of the bed, then, on second thoughts, he leaned back, and kissed Indie's cheek. She stirred in her sleep, but did not wake as Todd went to see to the child that they had made, dreaming dark but fond dreams of a dead husband; the sorrow of their parting would have torn her apart, if Todd Schmitt had not come along…She had shed so many tears.
Never mind.
We go on.
*
'He had done his best.
It wasn't enough.
He fought his hardest…
What else can you say?
He was an American.'
- 'Sombrero Fallout', Richard Brautigan.
It was a day the door closed
And she felt the breeze and heard the click
And she felt nostalgic for what had passed
She almost forgot, which was her way,
To draw the curtain ahead.
Chapter close, Ashira
[NOTE: All the poetry that was 'written' by Indie Blackburne was actually written by a remarkably talented person I know, who goes by the name of Ashira ( Thanks for letting me use it, honey…It suited Indie down to the ground. I just wish she'd been a bigger part of the story ; )]
dedicated to good old Allerhaene of Hopeless Causes, who hasn't had a story for a while, to Ross, who continues to mean a lot, even if we do have our…shaky moments, and to the ladies sitting at the table, because a start is a start…
Raen. 13th March, 2002.