Lia Piromalli Year 12
Clara
The armistice had just been signed on November 11th. Why wasn’t he home yet?
A cascade of clouds dominated the melancholy sky. A torrent of darkness swarmed over the fields and villages like an army of dark shadows. But the darkness couldn’t conceal everything, for there she saw him, approaching the top of the hill.
“Tom?” She whispered breathlessly, tears flowing down her rose-red chicks, violently, with the force of someone vomiting on all fours. She ran out of her wooden cottage and started up the hill towards the man she had been waiting for. Although winter was approaching, there was no need for a furry coat, or a woolly hat, for the sun began to dominate the once deathly sky, creating nothing but a warm summer's breeze. The once dried up fields transformed into a beautiful gold colour, and with each step she took, flowers and leaves blossomed as though it were spring time.
It felt like a lifetime before she reached Tom, but barefoot, she ran into his arms, and he embraced her
with his warm touch.
“My Tom,” she cried.
“My Clara,” he whispered, stroking her soft brown curls.
It had been four years. The destructive war had caused a distance in their relationship, for now Clara was almost certain she was too old to have children. But what did it matter? At least she hadn’t lost him forever.
A cold darkness interrupted and ascended over Clara and suffocated her like a shroud. Clara lost the feeling of Tom’s sweet touch, and she became an even greater victim of the merciless chills. As she looked up and saw he was gone, her throat became smaller and smaller. She tried to call his name, but she couldn’t. Instead she fell on her knees and screamed, she screamed how she did the time she had lost her infant.
A wicked, cruel trick of the mind. Her distorted mind was like a joke played by the devil. What kind of a game was it for her mind to restore her happiness and take it away within seconds? She had imagined it. Tom wasn’t here. Being happy is the most dangerous thing in the world, because it is only gifted to you when something is about to be taken away from you.
Even though she was running downhill, it took her even longer to reach her wooden cottage where she and Tom once lived happily, because she was exhausted. Exhausted from feeling so desperate and deprived. It was cold in the cottage too but she didn’t feel it, because her internal pain was too strong, it made any physical pain feel like a gentle ear twisting.
She darted towards a cupboard at the back of their cottage which had remained shut for years. Tom had used blood-red paint for the door. She found what she’d been looking for.
Rat poison.
Tom
Walking over the sweet fields, Tom inhaled the scent of home as the sun shone down aggressively. He wanted to run, but he couldn’t. The wound on his right leg seemed to be getting better, but with each step he felt a sharp slice of pain which caused him to wince.
He couldn’t remember how many people he’d shot, how many lives he’d taken, however he did know that he’d done it all for Clara, so they could be together again. They probably had wives waiting at home too, but the rule of war is that you have a choice: kill or be killed. He still carried the dried blood of his victims on his uniform. There was one death in particular which stained his mind like the blood had stained his shirt. A boy, too young to have his life ended so quickly, took a bullet to the face. His body jolted. His eyes remained open for a solid second, he looked Tom right in the eye as he collapsed to the ground, only to be demolished by a herd of soldiers. To help himself sleep at night, he thought: maybe if he hadn’t shot the boy, he would have left Clara to grow old alone in their cottage by the hill.
All warmth was lost as he opened the door and ruthlessly greeted with a cold presence.
That’s when he saw her.
Dead on the floor, mouth open with blood escaping out. His eyes shifted towards the almost empty bottle of rat poison.
“Oh Clara, what have you done?”
She showed no signs of life. Now he was sitting in a river of blood, weeping helplessly with his beloved wife’s slain body in his arms.
He picked up the soon to be empty rat poison, and made one last wish: that he’d see Clara, his dearest, in heaven.
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