In Dreams
Pack up your troubles in your old kitbag and smile, smile, smile...
Colin was drifting through warm cotton. The sounds of the field hospital rushed around him, but he was oblivious to it. The dreams would not let him go. He couldn't pull away, into full consciousness. Sometimes even as he dreamt of the garden or screamed with fear at the images of war which passed through his mind he could hear the voices of nurses and doctors. Their voices mixed with an eerie orchestra of birdsong and gunfire. He knew he had been taken to a field hospital, as he had regained consciousness for a time. Mostly, all he knew was pain. At first he had tried to grasp what the doctors had been saying about his injuries but there were so many injured men, and so many doctors and nurses rushing about, that he could hardly make sense of it. And the pain, the pain was so blinding he couldn't pinpoint what hurt. He knew one thing though, he no longer felt any pain in his legs, he wasn't sure he felt anything at all.
Oblivion was better. The morphine induced fog was free of pain, and if he was lucky, free of dreams. When he did dream, he was in a perpetual nightmare. Often, it was the same repetitive dream which haunted him. He would be standing in front of the walls of the garden, reaching out his hand to open the door, as his hand touched the door and pushed it open the rumble of gunfire began. The walls shook but Colin could not run, he could only walk forward into the garden.
At first the garden was at its peak of beauty. Every flower was in bloom, the grass was green, and roses circled the landscape. The sky was beautifully blue and the sun shone in Colin's eyes. There was something wrong though. The beauty shimmered in a way which frightened him. It didn't seem real, the beauty seemed to mock him in a sinister fashion. As the rumble of gunfire increased the beautiful sheen melted away. The walls of the garden began to crumble. The sky darkened filling with clouds of smoke and poison gas. The ground rumbled and began to fall away. In place of the green grass there was dark churned mud. Bodies grew up from the depths of the mud, floating to the surface. The flowers shriveled and grew gray. There was a whistling overhead and a burst of flames, the grass and trees began to burn. Soon everything was consumed by the close choking air, the acrid smoke and licking flames. Everything except the roses. The roses shook in the ground, then they began moving. Crawling and creeping around the bodies, their flowers were red as blood. As Colin stepped towards one of the dead men, the man's eyes opened. His eyes were a sickly yellow. The roses and their vines had snaked their way up the man's rotting arm, as the man began to move, to sit, to reach his stinking fingers towards Colin, the vines crept over Colin's fingers binding the men together. As their fingers met Colin struggled to get away but to no avail. The dead man smiled and began to laugh, pulling his rotten lips over blackened teeth and bleeding gums. He pulled Colin towards him and as Colin began to fall towards the churning earth and the man's broken body, he recognised the face. It was Dickon.
Colin's eyes flew open and he let out an inhuman scream.