Interlude
[Day is done]
The send her home in an empty box, except there is no more home, and the box contains nothing but a memory of someone who was.
(She is, and she is not.)
Someone signs a stack of documents and the empty box and the ghost come to a new home, shipped with so many like it – pine, plain and cured, slim shapes draped in the flags of their fathers, gently but consciously laid next to each other like matchsticks.
The ghost became letters and numbers stamped hurriedly on pieces of paper, her name and her rank and her serial number (Sergeant, 325572) in blank ink, fading with each repetition until the words are faint and grey.
Gloved hands cover the plain pine box and walk her through a grassy field, herself and a line of others.
It is May, almost June. It is a cold day.
Matchsticks, up and down the rows, red and white and blue under an overcast sky.
White pants in sharp pleats. A glint of brass. High polish on boots and guns. There are black hats and handkerchiefs and trembling fingers.
(there is a wailing from somewhere among the white picket fences of Arlington; it is not for her.)
They give her ghost a three rifle volley, shots splitting the still air, and lower the empty box deep into an empty grave.
Her name is carved into stone.
[Gone the sun]
She expects it to be a loud thing, a crash and a scream and fire, but it isn't.
It is loud, but in the strange and quietest of ways; white noise and whiter snow, the ice shrieking and metal bending until in fact, she can not hear anything at all.
There is no fire.
There is a very little sliver of light from somewhere above – that which is the faintest of rays – blue light, and blue sky in blue eyes.
That is all she can see.
She remembers being a child, the ache in her chest and the feeling of something drawing on her skin with ice, raking shins and along forearms, holding her arms vice tight to her sides – it has been a short time and a long time since she was bothered by the cold.
There are snowflakes, incongruously; they fall on her nose and into her eyelashes.
She closes her eyes.
The water is dark above her head, and still so cold (she is so cold) and the falling snow slowly blots out the sun.
[From the lakes]
Arendelle is dust and scattered stone and ash, her people grey faced and gone, blown into the wind on trains and steam ships.
She was green and gold and purple, maypoles in spring mornings, mountain primrose in alpine meadows.
She is black soot and red scars in the earth, and a crimson and yellow flag flapping against an empty sky.
The cost of war, people in pressed suits whisper, signing her away, whisking in steel and the stomp of heavy boots, the roar of diesel engines with a sweep of blue fountain pen.
It is the way it has to be.
(In quiet halls, heads are shaken and pints are nursed over chapped lips. It is a shame, they murmur to each other. She was so beautiful, once.)
[From the hills]
On an island in the Atlantic, a fat man stubs out his cigar, taps it into a cut crystal tray.
"History is written by the victors," he will say.
He is correct.
Because she was tall and strong and brave, because her country was razed and the violet wildflowers trampled underfoot, because she wore a uniform that was red, and white, and blue.
Smoke hangs in the air of a New York office, and another man wears a smart hat and a pinstripe suit and writes that she became a 'Captain for America', a beacon in their time of need.
There is victory in Europe.
Her story is sold in every paper in the world. The words are printed and reprinted, and they do not grow fainter, because she is not permitted to fade; she is not a ghost, she is larger than her life.
They raise a statue with her face polished in white marble, determined expression threaded with veins in grey.
(there is cheering. it is for her.)
A plaque rests by her feet and reads 'Captain America'.
[From the sky]
In 1961, a man puts his hand on a Bible and swears to preserve, protect and defend.
In 1962, ships meet in the Atlantic. They bristle with guns, they are heavy with men.
(the ocean is quiet)
In 1963 she wakes up.
She bristles with guns.
Her footsteps are heavy.
(a bullet make no sound in the air)
She does not remember the delicate pink, the flashes of red, the green of the grass, or the blueness of the December sky.
She does not remember the cheering, the screaming, the sounds of sirens in the distance, or the squeal of bald tires on asphalt.
In 1963, she goes back to sleep.
(she remembers the leather, the ugly hum of electricity, the feeling of metal on her temples)
[All is well]
On Sundays they scrub her name, softly, with gentle hands and a soft brush, liniment and soap over the white stone.
Grass is not permitted to grow on her, moss will not be allowed to bloom in the curves of vowels, the consonants and sounds.
Marble is witness to decades.
Black and white oxfords, pale orange pumps, soft penny loafers, rubber sandals, boots.
Hands run over her, and they are soft and fragile, skin crepey and spotted. They are young, with bitten nails, raw cuticles and chipped polish, and callouses on the fingertips.
It is spring and summer and autumn and winter and spring.
(she is still)
[Safely rest]
Ice is an odd thing: it is at once sweeping beautiful and crystal, gentle curves, delicate like frost, and powerful, carving mountains, splitting timber and stone.
(and slow, always slow.)
It is killer, savior.
It fills up her veins, but she does not crack, she does not break.
She could move mountains now.
(she will change the world)
When she was a little girl she watched the curls of ice crawling up her bedroom window, pushed warm fingertips into the panes of glass and drew pictures in the frost. She cut shapes into white paper and hung them from door frames, and clapped her hands and smiled.
Ice is a metal cage, a coffin that is not a coffin, a box that is not a box.
(they close the lid)
(she puts down the plane)
(it is cold)
...she is alive.