On A Battlefield
There will be {is,used to be} a battlefield, on a distant planet in the present {past, future} that was {will be} visited, many times, by an old, battered blue box.
Sometimes, it comes after a battle. A girl of nineteen in body and many centuries of age in soul will exit the box, and will help bury the dead, and mourn with the soldiers. She sometimes brings gifts - little things, like a wood carving, or a hat. She always knows who needs them the most, and she always knows what to do to comfort friends of the fallen.
Sometimes, it comes before the battle. She always seems very sad, then, when she talks to the soldiers. She treats certain people she talks to like she treasures every moment she has with them. It's as though she knows who won't be coming back. Those people always die in battle.
Less often, it will come during a battle. When this happens, she won't come out until after. If the side that was fighting for the right things doesn't triumph, she'll come out and just stand, looking at the soldiers with a sad look. A look that says, I know what you've done, I know what you're going to do, and I know I can't stop it. All the soldiers hate that look. If the side fighting for the right things does triumph, she comes out, and follows her usual routine, even if she does usually look far more haunted than most other times.
Once, she talked to me. She asked me what we were fighting for. I told her, 'freedom of speech. Safety in our country. A better life.' She smiled at me. I didn't say that I thought it was a little sad. She was there after the battle too. This is rare, and usually it's a particularly important battle. A friend, a very good one, had died protecting a stray child, and suddenly I knew why she had looked so sad. She had given me a carefully carved wooden bird. It sits, now, on my mantle.
Even years later, in peacetime, still she comes. There is a small cliff with a beautiful view of the sunset, and a wooden bench. Sometimes I sit on it, and sometimes other soldiers do. Each of us has watched the sunset with her at least once. She'll stand there all night, but she's never there to watch the sunrise. Sometimes she'll sit with us on the bench, and sometimes she stands just behind us. She never says anything, and after a while, neither do we. Sometimes, she's alone, and I stand at the edge of the battlefield and watch. When she's alone, she stands at the edge and looks down, as though she wonders what would happen if she just took that last step… she never does.
I have never forgotten the young, ancient woman in the impossible blue box.
None of us ever will.