Somewhere in the near distance, artillery pounded a second sunset into the night sky.
Even if he couldn’t hear the cracks, he could see them from all these miles away. Dark silhouettes and blackened plumes of smoke rose in long fingers, choking the world and all that lived beneath them. The sky lit up in motley hues of explosive colours, flares of terror that echoed his aching heartbeat.
For every moment he thought the barrage might abate, the resistance in the towns around them breathing a last, gasping breath, it renewed again. It was cruel like that, waiting until sleep might lull him into its grasp, finally freeing him from this day of days before he was shaken awake with booming guns and the tremors they carried, tolling like funeral bells.
It was almost enough to drive a man insane.
Soon, he decided it’d be a futile effort and left the thoughts of sleep and chased, as he had for some nights now, comfort in the bottom of wine bottles.
“If you’re going to drink my wine, the least you could do is offer me some,” a voice called across the room, forcing him to squint to make it out. “It’s common courtesy, you know.”
“You seem to have more than enough lying around here,” he said, letting red run past his lips. “By all means, find yourself a bottle.”
“And they say chivalry is dead.”
“No,” he disagreed. “But just about everything else out there is.”
When the next flash came and lit up the room, he caught sight of her sullen features. Light cast long shadows down her face and, for the moment he found her eyes, hers darted away just as quickly. She wrapped herself in her torn shawl like a beggar would the robes of a King and turned away from him, leaving him to his drink.
Looking to the window, “they’re getting closer,” she said. “It won’t be long now.”
“I bet they are,” he whispered, not wanting to entertain the thought.
There hadn’t been a chance to get a good look at her—he was sheltering in a stranger’s home and nothing felt so unkind as to repay her hospitality by passing judgement on how she held her hair or dusted her cheeks. But, with wine and the ever-present possibility that morning might not come, he allowed himself to indulge in the occasional rudeness.
He did not see her for what she had, bright eyes that sat like stars in the sockets of twilights or the remnants of makeup that might’ve wooed guests in another life. No, he didn’t see her for what she had but rather, what she didn’t. In her cheeks and the muscles of her jaw she carried atrophy—the remnants of the war clung to her like a second skin.
The pang of guilt that found him was strong enough that he stumbled to his feet, much to her quiet surprise, and passed her what was left of the bottle. Without a second’s hesitation, it found her lips and emptied itself into her mouth.
With the fondest smile he could muster, he imagined a time his mother might have told him off for daring to associate with women that would drink straight from a bottle.
Then, when she had finished the bottle, in a final, liberating act, she tossed it hard against the wall, shattering it and tearing up the wallpaper. She laughed, perhaps at the wine or perhaps at the absurdity of it all. He sat down beside her and laughed too, even if it didn’t feel like he should.
“Another bottle?” He suggested once her laughter had calmed down and gravity returned them to earth.
“Please,” she said and returned to wrapping her thin shawl around her arms. “I… uh, I didn’t catch your name earlier.”
Cringing slightly as he took to his feet, “James,” he said. “I apologise for not being the most hospitable guest, you’ve been kind.”
“The world is on fire, you’ve got the right to feel mad about it,” she said as he began to search shelves for a second bottle. “Somewhere to your left,” she directed him.
James offered her a slight smile, not that she’d make it out in the darkness, “and you?”
“Pardon?”
“I didn’t catch your name either,” James said. “I suppose fearing for your life does that to you.”
“I suppose it does. It’s Aimee.”
Clicking his tongue as he tested the word, “Aimee,” he said, “it’s a pretty name.”
He could hear the frown in her voice, “I’m spoken for.”
“Luckily, I wasn’t proposing.”
Searching for another bottle, his eyes crossed the parts of the room still visible. There was a charm to the destruction, torn wallpaper and scattered furniture fighting a war all their own.
Once upon a time, he imagined it might’ve once smelt of saffron and been filled with silks.
Now it smelt of sulfur and smoke and was filled with sorrows.
Trying to busy the conversation while he busied his hands, “it’s a nice house,” he said.
“My husband’s mother owns—owned it,” she said.
Biting his top lip, “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s fine,” she brushed off quickly. “No harm done, we’ve all lost someone these days.”
A war raged and she was alone, amidst the ruins of her house, with the thoughts of her husband. It took no genius to place the pieces together.
Thankfully, his fingers brushed against cold glass and he seized the bottle, turning around with it held high he brandished it like a trophy. The only victory either of them were going to see for some time.
Fiddling with the cork, James could hear her rise from behind him, shifting along the carpet until crackling static and half-legible words filled his ears.
“What are you doing?” He asked before raising the bottle to his lips, the cork finally freed.
“You’ll see,” was her vague reply.
Squinting in the darkness, “No, somehow I don’t think I will,” he said, stepping closer before making a guess. “A… radio?”
“Mhm,” she mumbled. “My husband was always a fan.”
Biting his lip, he didn’t think it wise to push the conversation any further.
As she played with the dial, it slowly shifted between the casualty reports and announcements of the war, calls to arms, and other such things he was better off not hearing.
Stepping around the pieces of furniture he’d mapped out in the dark, he offered her the bottle of wine to which she took a long, gulping mouthful and handed it back, returning to the dials.
Within a few seconds, her ministrations had produced music blaring in patches, momentary symphonies filling the room. A reaching hand found his own in the darkness and squeezed tightly.
Taken aback by the sudden gesture, “what are you doing?” He asked.
“We’re going to dance,” she said as if her words explained it all.
“Excuse me?”
She had the good nature to look abashed at the odd request, “It’s the little things that’ll make you feel better,” she explained. “When I was a girl, it was dancing, I might as well try it again to see if it’ll work again. Because I really wouldn’t mind feeling better.”
“I—I’ve never really danced before,” he stammered, looking for an excuse, “and I don’t think it’d do much good anyway.”
Especially not with strangers, in the dark, in a war, he thought.
But if any day was a day for firsts, it was today.
“You won’t know if it’ll work if you don’t try, will you?”
Seizing the lull in the conversation, she practically leapt forward and forced his other hand into hers before adjusting the first to his shoulder. Tentatively, he allowed his own to find the small of her back.
“Really, I’ve never done—” he tried.
Breathing a soft, gusty sigh, “it’s easy, even if you don’t know how to, trust me. You just… move.”
Then, she began swaying and carried him along with her, unwilling as he was.
He tried desperately to avoid her toes as they rocked back and forward like a listing ship on unsteady seas.
“It’s alright,” she soothed his wounded pride before absentmindedly adding, “You’re not from here, are you?”
“You’ve just noticed?” He asked, “It wasn’t the butchered accent?”
“It was,” she said. “I’m just polite.”
“No,” he said. “I’m not. England, Birmingham.”
“You’re far from home, why is that?”
Swallowing the emotions that rose in his throat, “Personal reasons, I suppose,” he said. “My dad, he, well, didn’t make it out of the last war. I never got the chance to know him so I thought I’d, you know, try and find some… reason for it—anything.”
“And did you?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry,” her lips quirked slightly upwards.
He shrugged, “nothing to be sorry about, you didn’t do it.”
“So, instead, you’ve found a war of your own?”
“Instead, I found my own,” he confirmed. “And if I was smart, I would’ve left it all behind when I saw trouble but I didn’t. Pride, maybe. Wanted to tell my mum I finally found something over here.”
She shrugged, “Maybe, but don’t blame yourself. If the world had more smart people, we probably wouldn’t be here to begin with.”
That got a small smile from him, “Maybe,” he agreed, “I’d agree if I had gotten something out of it, just more questions on why it went the way it did—the way it’s going again.”
“It’ll keep happening too,” she whispered. “It’s simple like that.”
“Oh?”
“I… I’m not so sure how to put it,” she admitted and was silent for a few moments as they moved to the soft beat of the music. “They’re scared, I think, and no one has shown them any different.”
“Scared of what?” James urged her on.
“Of what the world might be like if men can no longer find reasons to hate.”
His brow furrowed, “I’m not sure I follow.”
“That’s all some people can do, they hate and they hate and they hate because they’re built that way and if they don’t have that, what do they have?”
“Nothing, I suppose.”
“Exactly,” she said. “I think they’re scared of life without purpose—hating is the easiest thing there is, most of them have done it all their life, one thing after another. Loving something is harder, you might have to admit the flaws and still care for it anyway. That’s strength they don’t have and I think they’re too scared to find it.”
His breath hitched, “Do you truly believe that?”
“I do,” she said and a particularly large blast from beyond the room allowed him to spy her face and find that she did, instead of atrophy in her eyes and jaw, he found her truth. “But the people who love, in spite of it all, are worth living for—worth fighting for.”
“I don’t think we can put up much of a fight,” he frowned. “What without rifles and tanks, I’d say we’ve lost already.”
“Then I guess we’ll just dance, do the little things. That’s how we’ll show the world we’re still free, that they can’t beat us. That’ll scare them just as much.”
He swallowed, “I think I’m twice as scared as them.”
“Me too,” she whispered, hiding her face. “Just keep dancing.”
And so, they danced till morning.
They danced because even if the world crumbled and told them it might be time to die, that was what free people did first, they lived.
They danced because it was little acts like this, these acts of defiance that kept the hope of humanity alive.
They danced to keep hope burning, embers nestled in wet moss and tinder that kept the world’s spark alive. A flame they could use to reignite the passion in others and show them all a kinder way to live.
They danced because one day, the world would need to remember how to dance again.
And when it did, they’d set it alight.