Entropy

[cyanideparty]

Rated: T

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I.

War has the potential to be boring from the driver’s seat. Too often stressful. Too often tiring. But sometimes very boring. There are always men walking around and that becomes a boring sight rather quickly.

So he thinks about her. He tries not to. Not too much. He is committed to keeping his two worlds separate. War is very dark and very dirty, and he doesn’t want her mixed in with all that. With all the bullets and the blood and the bodies. All the ashes of the necessary dead.

After all, she isn’t a mission. She is a want. A desire. Not an imperative end-goal. But one he’s going to take on personally just the same. He wants to; because he wants her.

And he doesn’t want her mixed in with those hard, necessary means to their necessary end.

She requires far softer means. She is a want, after all.

II.

She’s perfected the routine of innocence and purity. An attractive contrast to the filth that comes with cleansing a society. She’s already clean and he likes that immensely.

He likes it when things can be clean.

But that isn’t always the case in his line of work, where the only thing flesh is good for is splitting open, weeping, and then rotting. So she’s a nice change of pace.

III.

She’s easier than war. When he goes to her, she’s ready and she’s willing to be conquered. He doesn’t need soldiers to bend her to his vision. She’s already on her back, body open and waiting, prepared to accept his objective.

Turns out, there’s a strange and curious pleasure hiding behind the act of capitulation.

And in what was once an unforeseen, accidental discovery, she proves to him time and again how submission can be such a lovely indulgence for his own body. Sometimes he likes having his power stripped away and his mythology erased. Sometimes he likes having to cast his eyes up.

Sometimes, this change of pace feels very good.

IV.

There are many evenings spent next to her on the couch. She whispers in his ear, occasionally saying his name very softly; and his chest becomes warm and heavy and that makes him want to smile. Her shoulder is slightly, subtly pressing into his. And late into the night he grabs her hand and tucks their tangled fingers down in between their bodies, out of sight. Sometimes the moment is only for the two of them.

The feeling of being human again is now a dreamy treasure.

V.

Worry is in her voice, and there’s an uncomfortable tightness in her embrace when they must once again part ways. They’ve been there since September of ‘39. And they’ve only gotten worse.

He knows she dislikes the sight of him in the uniform. She perceives it to be him playing chicken with fate. Boldly broadcasting a death sentence.

And he doesn’t know how to cure her of that doomsday fantasy. He doesn’t know how to stop the nightmares of funerals and the images of tombs scored with his name and a pair of dates. And this bothers him.

He doesn’t like the feeling of being unfit.

VI.

His health has become one of her obsessions. A hobby, almost. But without the relaxation or satisfaction owed of a recreation. She’s always asking asking asking, always asking everyone. Everyone else, at least–she doesn’t trust his doctor and she makes that very clear.

At its foundation, it’s a very thoughtful gesture. He knows she’s so persistent because she’s in love; and love is such a powerful thing, he knows that too. But sometimes the hypocrisy gets stuck under his skin. He’s smelt cigarette smoke on her clothing more than once and she never eats.

For some reason, the mirrors in the house all lie to her. He tells her it’s not all the other men he’s afraid of. No, he’s afraid of the call that reveals she’s been stolen away from him by the Föhn, of all things. But she smirks and dismissively waves her hand. And ignores the truth behind it.

She’s left him with his own obsession, his own hobby. He’s always asking asking asking, asking about the little things because maybe not every little thing turns into a big thing but every big thing certainly starts out as a little thing and he’s not willing to roll any dice here.

He needs to know she is strong. He needs to know she cannot and will not break. He needs to know she will be here. Work hasn’t been going as planned lately.

VII.

He knows she wants to ask him about the setbacks.

But she doesn’t. She instead shows him her new pair of black shoes with ridiculously steep heels on them. And for a brief moment, he’s worrying about her breaking an ankle rather than the setbacks.

VIII.

Truth be told, he often prefers to give consideration to the easy, trivial quandaries of her life rather than occupy himself with the momentous ones of his own. The solutions are often very simple. Obvious. Attainable. He can pluck them right out of the air and drop them into her grateful little hands.

At that moment, she will be happy. And he will be happy. Because something he has done has made someone happy.

IX.

She’s upset he won’t come home during the winter. And it’s certainly justified. He’s just as upset about it all as she is. But he refuses to talk about it. He’s too busy pushing their oasis farther and farther away from here, keeping it safe, keeping it sterile, keeping it shiny and spotless.

And that comes with a price. They rarely feel one another. They rarely see one another. Photographs don’t do her justice, they never have, and he knows his words can only pad the emptiness within her so much. He knows because the emptiness within himself is playing by the same rules. Bringing with it a dull, stubborn ache that pulls at him throughout the day, making sure he does not forget about this growing desire to be somewhere else, with someone else.

So yes, he thinks about her. Too much. He doesn’t even try to stop it. If she cannot be with him in body, then he will take her in spirit. He will stuff that emptiness full with dreams and memories and fantasies. He will stuff it full with the sound of her voice and the shape of her words. He will stuff it full with golden visions of the future.

He will find a way to stuff a black hole full.

X.

His eyes are shaded with the harsh colors of death and destruction. Of creeping, corroding failure. But she never tries to look away when they make love. She is committed, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, and she wants him to be certain of that. Her demise is in his hands and that’s both a comforting and a concerning thought.

XI.

It’s a hard realization. But one that must be acknowledged and respected. He sits her down in her room one evening and with a tight throat and a tongue made of cotton tells her he has no right to keep her, and that they must stop pretending otherwise. It’s past time he let her go and let her move on. She’s wasting her life here. Waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

And for what? The man who used to come home to her no longer exists. What’s she’s waiting for is a ghost.

So she tells him his teasing has gone too far, he’s just being mean now, he’s just hurting her now. She refuses to look at him. He takes ahold of her chin to force her stare. She whispers and whimpers Stop it, stop it, stop it as he proceeds to bury her dream, when he says to her You know I’m right.

He pushes on until he makes her cry. Until she rips her hands from his hold. Until she finally slaps him across the face in an act of self-preservation. An act that hurts her far more than it does him.

But there is no victory here. No pride. No relief. He is the villain if he breaks her heart. He is the villain if he steals her life. And when she’s lying before him, broken and limp like a corpse, that life leaving her anyway by way of frighteningly wretched sounds, he’s no longer sure which one is the lesser evil. He no longer knows which one he wants to be–or if it’s even possible to keep her alive anymore.

Perhaps she was doomed the day he chose her.

But that isn’t his fault, it can’t be. How could he have known? How could he have foreseen the treason and betrayal that is hell bent on drowning him? How could he have known that a life’s mission would demand the complete entirety of his life, instead of just most of it?

How could he have known he had no life left to offer?

XII.

Everything is crumbling. Everything is breaking. The stage he’s built for himself is collapsing into a dilapidated mess. The nest he’s built for the two of them is being threatened. War has been bleeding into the gilded world in which they love together–and it’s had enough. It’s begun retaliating. Worming its way through the widening cracks of his barrier and into what was once supposed to be a one-and-done operation.

But this will not be endgame. He will simply work a little harder. He will simply will a little firmer. Then it will all fix itself. Things will be alright. He will sacrifice just a little bit more. He must sacrifice just a little bit more.

She’ll understand in the end.

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Tumblr can delete me all it wants. I’m not done writing until I decide I’m done writing. I don’t care if I’m just yelling to an empty void now.
(And if you can’t understand/accept that a character’s beliefs ≠ the writer’s, you probably shouldn’t read any piece of literature ever.)