Like Leaves
Under the watch of many, they go.
Their sad fame leads the way, disheartened whispers follow. The bitter laughter of many slides down their cloaks; they leave and know they must, flocks of birds in a prisoner sky.
They do not rest — not even in front of the gates, when the gears weep for them and the enraged yells of their people trap them in a circle. They have to stand together, grinded teeth and lost eyes. Slowly, painfully, they have to ignore.
For the badges on their backs, all floating in the same way, are even more than a oath; the are the sign of devotion, the choice to leave behind a life for sure.
On behalf of so many others, they go to die. They gallop through the mouth of hell, and the lot is left behind to stare — enclosed by the walls, unaware, ungrateful.
To find the courage once more, they have to forget.
Not even the blue of the expanse above is enough to warm their hearts. They keep their eyes on the backs of their companions, torn between focus and terror. They are bent and hurled in the race, the wings of freedom; in some dream-like days, they manage to believe they could take flight.
With the same hope sewn on their cloaks, they run, until their ranks tear.
These are women and men who know the price of things. They draw the borders of this dying world; they are the ones to make all the difference, parting entitlement and dedication. Each and every one of them, in their frail formation, knows their place.
A flight is not a gift. It is a constant fight, carved out of gravity and strength. A flight is to be earned.
But why — they wonder — why does it have to cost so much?
And they ask themselves the same question, desperate, up to the very last moment. They cannot help it as they rise, silver arrows in the sky, to save what they can of an invisible future.
Despite being so many, they find themselves alone.
There is nothing but the land, the free woods and the fields once theirs, to watch them lose control. It is overgrown grass to drink their blood and tears — the ears of the heavens close themselves to their prayers, as they regret fiercely what they have been, with every single thing they could never do.
Feathers, small and vain, lost in the afternoon light. With the same consistency, they are torn to pieces — until what is left to see of the earth is just flesh and blood, and shreds of their clothes rise, abandoned, under the touch of the wind.
Flung away by anything else, they are taken by the gusts, until nothing is left.
Even the cries of the mourners get lost in its song. In the end, alive or not, they are all the same — fragile and broken, like dry leaves in the fall.
Like that they are swept away, and must return. They do not need to guess what awaits them on the other side; there is a world of caged animals, abandoned to rage and ignorance.
As always, they will not understand. Nobody ever does. And after days like these — days hanging from the trees, abandoned to the hands of the storm — remembering why is even harder for them.
Like that, they arrive; empty shells, following in each other's wake, and left with no more answers.
So it goes, every time, until the next expedition. So it goes, until the day the reminder arrives.
And that is the day in which, finally, the Survey Corps can teach them.
This, their empty eyes repeat, is what it truly means to be dry leaves in the wind.
The fragile nature of life is what SNK communicates me with the most strength. I have always wanted to convey the feeling, and I found my inspiration in one of the most famous war poems of our land, Soldati (Soldiers):
Si sta come/ d'autunno/ sugli alberi/ le foglie.
(We feel like leaves on trees, in Autumn).
Giuseppe Ungaretti