Truth is everyone is born innocent and foolish. Dreamers, aliens coming from a land where fantasies are reality. But there are those who still have innocence kept alive in the windows of their souls. Like Gilbert.
A strange boy, so unusual to the eyes of those who watched him run through the plains, leading his knights through the barbarian lands. He was an innocent boy, a child like any other. That's when he wasn't fulfilling his duties as a knight apprentice. When he didn't need to memorize a thousand of Bible passages, while he wasn't practising his techniques with the sword against the trunk of a dead tree.
His innocence did not last long. Because he was promised power, strength and wealth if he continued to hit the tree until his hands bled. They promised him so many things that he was soon blinded by greed; not his, but that of others. But, yes, he would be great. He would be a promise.
I am just a poor boy
Though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocket full of mumbles
He grew up like that. Living among requirements and congratulations, fought for what they promised him. He was undefeated. A true warrior. But only a warrior and nothing else. The child grew, and was almost a man who could stand on his own two feet without the help of allies.
He soon learned to make his own rules, finding himself free from the shackles of the old men who bound him. Those who had promised him glory and fame. Yes, he was big, he was powerful. But he was not enough. They had never given him limits, then why stop there? The sky was only the first floor of his Babel Tower.
All lies and jests
Still a man hears
what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
Not that, one day, he had a family. Not that, one day, he had a father, mother or siblings. Grown among the knights, then among other Germanics (who still regarded him with some suspicion and even contempt), but he had no one he could call family.
Loneliness was a little heartbreaking. It was like a small tick stuck to his heart; it did not bother him, and the lack of someone to talk did him no wrong.
But he knew the insecurity of having to figure everything out for himself. It was a whole world to be discovered; a whole world to be explored for such petite creature.
When I left my home and my family
I was no more than a boy
In the company of strangers
In the quiet of the railway station running scared
And life has never ceased to be his main antagonist. But with each step he took towards the next day, he became increasingly bitter, more lonely. The tick was growing, and deep inside, he knew he wanted – nay, needed – someone who would welcome him with open arms and warm hugs. someone who would cover his face with tender kisses. Could be from a lover or some old lady who took pity on his orphan past.
No. Being strong already wasn't enough. What fame could buy him a friend, a brother? It was not money he needed. He never needed money, actually.
He began to wonder if such luxury was needed. If castles with immense halls, beautiful stained glasses gave him the pleasure to live.
Live... He did not know how to live.
Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters
Where the ragged people go
Looking for the places
only they would know
However, after so many wars, so much conflict, so much blood, what kind of promise would he make to others but a future of hatred and betrayal? Who would approach a treacherous fox looking for a loyal dog?
He had no charisma. He did not know how to repay treats. Of what use were palaces filled up with gold if his heart was empty?
And even if he sought the whores, what good was in that timed pleasure if it wasn't real love? It was a love made of sugar: It was sweet, but did not last at all.
Like water, his money was gone, along with his hopes of feeling that one shred of feelings that were not returned to him. He loved the whores, but knew they did not love him. It was just a trade. Reality was just a lie.
And so, it came knocking on his door once in a while. It came with a spear to break his legs and show that a heart of an unloved man did not keep the legs of the knight he once was. A poor soul did not hold the body of a man about to fall into the abyss of his own Loneliness and Fear.
That fear and insecurity that had always shared the space in his chest with his heart, ever smaller, increasingly weaker and more stupid.
Only the cold kept him company.
Asking only workman's wages
I come looking for a job
But I get no offers,
Just a come-on
from the whores on Seventh Avenue
I do declare, there were times
when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there
When he realized he had been defeated, the battles that he had won no longer made sense. All that strength and power that was promised to him could no longer keep his broken legs. When he realized he was devoid of any glory that he had accumulated over the years, he also realized that there was no Prussia. There was no home any more.
Or rather, there had never been home. There had never been a place that would welcome him and that stopped him from thinking about all that he longed to have. When was the last time he felt nurtured by someone? That house was devoid of any care, any feeling of familiarity. Like his heart, that was as empty as homes he had dwelt in and the promises made to him in that distant past of innocence.
There was nothing left for him but rags he wore to protect himself from the cold.
The soldier wanted to go back to the home that never was. What was the fate of those who, like pawns, only advanced, but never returned? What promise would still be worth to make him drag himself looking forward a tomorrow?
The cold just reminded him of how lonely he was and how much he needed someone to teach him how to love.
Then I'm laying out my winter clothes
And wishing I was gone, going home
Where the New York City winters
Aren't bleeding me, leading me, going home
Every day, he felt weaker. He started trying to kill himself. Throwing himself against the wall, throwing himself into the frozen rivers, fighting with Soviet officials who infested Berlin. His beloved Berlin.
Prussia no longer existed; so, what justified his mere existence in a cold world of pain and of the shadows that corroded his toes? Who was that kid whose name was a bright pledge? A banner of a crusade of hopes and dreams?
Who was Gilbert?
The soldier, the boxer Prussia was already dead. However, he wanted to take the warrior – Gilbert – with him. The proud boxer who did not accept losing, who had his pockets full of money, who loved the whores and did not accept his fate as a loser. And so, he tried to prevent the warrior from standing again. The warrior who refused to drop dead in the snow, who still had a bit of the hope typical of children in the glow of his ruby eyes.
It was time to leave. The boxer finally quieted down beside the warrior. And wept. He wept like he never did before.
As Gilbert always did for him.
Prussia wailed in anger and shame and eventually disappeared at the dawn of Spring's first day.
Under the sunlight that announced a new, although, short tomorrow, Gilbert finally got up, without the typical pain in his old broken legs. The next day's sunrise would be his new goal.
No. Perhaps, what he most needed now would be to free himself from the obligations and objectives. Free himself.
And for the first time in many centuries, he let out a sincere smile. And a tear, not like Prussia's.
But an authentic tear. His first honour on his real name.
Gilbert.
In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders of ev'ry glove that layed him down
Or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving" but the fighter still remains
Author's Notes: It's been a while since I wrote this. Just another poorly translated songfic. Song's name is "The Boxer", originally composed by Simon & Garfunkel, performed by Mumford & Sons.
Fun fact: Did you know Gilbert's name stands for "bright pledge"?