The First Notebook - Pt. III

It began, as I see it, on a cool, soft winter's day. A dry, quiet snow was falling slowly and deliberately onto the slick city streets, giving the impression of being anchored in a field of stars. A fresh wind would every so often whip out from behind a building, nipping lightly at the tips of fingers and the tips of noses. I was bundled up inside, reading something, probably a book on political theory, when I heard the knock on the door. I suppose it only took a couple of seconds or so, between my putting the book down, and my hopping out of bed, and my walking to the door, looking through the peephole, and, cautiously, opening it. But in hindsight the whole thing seems like it was a liquid moment, like walking through a bowl of gelatin.

The man who greeted me when I opened the door was very thin, almost all ribcage, that was the first thing I noticed. He was so thin, in fact, that he seemed to be almost tubular in shape. He had thin gray hair and smooth, shiny skin, almost like a baby's, though you could tell he was very old. Most distinctive, though, were his eyes. They were shifty and intelligent- golden yellow with tiny pupils that even in the blur of winter seemed to pierce deep into your very viscera. A gaze that made your organs squirm. He gave me a curt salute, and got straight down to business.

"Major Roy Mustang, I presume?" He said. He had a slight lisp which gave everything he said a crisp sound, like crumpling paper.

"That's me," I said.

"Orders direct from the Fuhrer," he said, handing me an envelope. "You're being sent to the front, sir. All the alchemists are."

At first, I didn't really believe what he was saying. Something odd about talented intellectuals is that they often feel themselves to be exempt from certain rules. They live in their own insular worlds, trapped in their minds, assuming that nothing can break them from the flow of their own thoughts. So when the outside world comes knocking on the door with obligations and orders, it somehow doesn't feel real. I remember talking with Rudolph about this, and he said he felt something similar when he got the order. Like it was some sort of nightmare.

"Why?" I asked. "Why would the Fuhrer do this?" I must have betrayed some hint of anger in my voice, because he shrunk nervously backwards with a sheepish grin on his face.

"Hey, don't ask me, sir. I'm just the messenger. Something about getting the Ishvalans to sue for peace, quick-like and all that, sir," he said.

"I thought the military had all that in order," I said. "That's what the newspapers are saying, victory after victory. Why would they need to bring the State Alchemists into this?"

Of course, even then I wasn't naïve enough to believe that the newspapers were reporting pure facts. As an employee of the state, it was easy enough to see the duplicity involved in the journalism regarding the war. That the serious newspapers were too vague and the tabloids too sensational. Still, for a moment I really wanted to believe that everything was fine, because that was the only way I would be secure and free. I also felt betrayed, like a knife had been jabbed into my back and had left me with a ragged, bleeding wound that could not be closed. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

"I don't know, sir. They didn't tell me anything. Just read the order, it should all be there," he said.

"Whatever. Thank you for telling me. That'll be all," I said.

"Thank you, sir. Just read the order, it's all there," he said with a salute. Then I shut the door in his face.

In a nervous daze, I walked back over to my bed and sat down. The air seemed to be charged with electricity and all of the familiar objects in my room became sources of new horror. A coatrack by the door, a chess set splayed out on my coffee table with the remains of a game me and Hughes had been playing, the closet slanted barely open. They took on a new menace, as something fundamental in my character changed imperceptibly. Since coming home I have replaced almost all of my furniture. I couldn't stand to look at it.

I opened the note with shaking hands and a heavy feeling in my stomach. I actually have the original order still, I think. Yes, I do. I'll paste the important part in the notebook for your benefit. Omitted is the list of names of other State Alchemists to which the order was delivered.

From: Fuhrer King Bradley

To: Major
Roy Mustang
Rolling Oaks, Apt. No. 515
Central City, Central Area

Via. Corporal
Johann Pfeiffer
Subject: Ishval

You, along with your fellow State Alchemists, are being ordered to the Ishvalan front for active duty, effective as of December 24, 1908. You will report to the military headquarters at 0900 on this date, at which point you will be transported by truck to Ishval. From there, you will await further orders.

Fuhrer King Bradley

So much for information. The order was so milquetoast that it was hard to really comprehend the gravity of it. There was no rich prose, no call to action, no explanation. Just a simple command. We were to go to Ishval. I almost ran back out to ask the man if he was sure that was all there was to it, but I quickly thought better of it. Better to resign myself to my fate. I chose this path when I became a State Alchemist, after all. My idyllic period of research and reading couldn't extend indefinitely, not while there was a war on. I sat for a long time on that bed, face in my hands. Ishval. Damn. In two days. Damn.

Putting on my coat, I stepped outside into the cold. My mind became as empty and clear as the snow blanketing the streets, pure white, a desolate and silent landscape. I focused on nothing but the crunch of snow beneath my boots, the sound of wind blowing about the limbs of dead trees. I put a cigarette to my mouth and lit it. The tip glowed a bright orange, in deep contrast in the blue-gray of the winter daylight.

I walked for a very long time, with no particular sense of where I was going. I've heard there is a phenomenon in a country to the Northwest, perhaps Drachma, where farmers will get lost in their own fields. Land that they've tilled and worked for years and years and generations and generations, and suddenly nothing will make sense and everything will seem alien. Folk wisdom says that the farm has traced into another dimension, another strange and different place that of course the poor farmer has no recollection of. I don't know how much stock to put into it, but it seemed to be exactly what happened that day in Central. I'd lived in Central essentially my whole life, and I thought that the streets were familiar. But suddenly I couldn't recognize anything- no landmarks, nothing familiar. Just buildings covered in snow. I got lost and wandered around like a listless ghost. The city has really never seemed the same to me, since that day.

I did eventually find myself at Hughes's apartment, and he drove me home. But by that point I was shivering and numb from the cold. All the way back, those two thoughts kept bubbling up in my mind, like roots stubbornly showing above a field of snow.

Ishval. Damn. In two days. Damn.