I Am Lucky, I Walked Away…………..
Posted with the kind permission of my daughter.
Strong black lines snake silkily over the brow and down the straight steel nose. The tickling trickle of the stream glistens on the ear drum, tantalizing the senses to lust after it. The lips are licked and eyes switch from side to side not nervous but ready. A drip of sweat nestles on the eyelashes as they flutter open, closed, in the swarm of winged insects waltzing on the moist air. Twittering hum of the buzzing birds and pitter patter of six legs scuttling under an eclipsing leaf are unnoticed by the beasts that kneel and wait. Camouflaged carriers of fire and darting metal that splits flesh and sends limbs from body to bush. Earth ascends to the sky and dry, dirty drizzle avalanches onto new soil. Screams, cries, shouts and yelps then sobbing and silence as the dead resign to be the fodder of the forest.
Time to move, run, walk, crouch, crawl to a different clearing in the leafy sea. Another villain made of six strong men hides amongst the infants and their creators. Hands move, fingers point, tongues lay patiently in closed stern mouths. Eyes line up with heads and chests through a metal cross, panning left and right for perfect sight. The prey is alert they prowl up and down on hind leg sniffing at the air with binoculared eyes. Then leaden mosquitoes spitfire to them, devouring in one bite the essence of their victims.
Tin cans and trays on dampened fire to feed waning muscles clitter clatter in the rush for rations. Whispers of conquests cowardly and courageous slither from fluffed tongues and nibbled lips. One falls, eyes wide and sniper shocked with a red shirt collar as others scramble under nature’s duvet. The monster under their beds trots to and fro from burrow to burrow twitching its nose in excitement as the trespassers strive to alertness above, on living ground.
Sticky solutions cling corrosively to innocent flesh and the devastating radiance of an unforgiving inferno turns dusk to dawn. The orbiting rock rotates relentlessly as night and day lose their connection with dreams and reality. Cigar mouthed chattering colonels crowd over co-ordinates. Latitude and longitude lines are scratched onto fluttering pads of paper to send rumbling propellers into action. The termites cluster in their caverns as long nosed aardvarks search from the skies. Crippling craters emerge and mammals are given flight, but the painted people in rotten uniforms edge backwards. Medals are tarnished by blood and mud and lose their prowess to instil pride. The jig-sawed land is left unsolved and foliage free.
Jeers and taunts are seared into the brains of the recoiling warriors. Sniffed up spits of hate and disgust slide down beaten cheeks. The syncopated steps of crutched bodies mingle with ill-oiled wheels as the parade plods to dispersal.