Brutalist Stories #14

“We are the ones that must fort the position!” The commander yells as I look down at my hands. Oh these hands, a world contained within them.

You arrive here the new, the young, the intended and then one day, you must realise you’re lost. Your soul has gone…and then?

“Men and women, let us do or die this day!” More yelling, more screams, more carnage in this place. I look up from my hands, panting as the fire streams across the otherwise grey sky and there’s a fear deep inside, something primordial and true but something contained now and there’s nothing in this world that will let it out.

Do or die, do or die, do or die. Where am I going and when will it end, it must end, there must be an end? But of course, when your soul is gone and you’re the soldier now and you would rather DO than DIE, you know that they’ve turned you and you are no longer the young, the intended. You’ve lost, everything is lost.

A man runs past me and sags from the knees for a split second, then something in him takes another stride before he crumples to the floor. The blood pours out of his helmet and onto the ash covered concrete. The red fluid mixing and pooling and inching its way over to me as the commander yells and the fire streams. Do or die, do or die.

I dip my fingers into the blood by my side, pushing it around, mixing it with the ash into a pink paste and draw lines with it under my eyes. A flicker and an explosion and chunks of concrete and viscera and I’m shaking when I know I shouldn’t be. I should be firm and hold this weapon with these hands that have done so much, but the soldier ebbs and the soul is somehow finding its way.

Why here, why now? Why not before when following all those commands over all those years? Why is this place any different? This lone wall.

The fire in the sky dies and the ash falls and I turn onto my chest and crawl along and to the front facing wall. The commander laughs and I close my eyes and see it floating before me, it’s still there, the soul, somehow and from somewhere it is still there and today I choose. Do or die, do or die.

I open my eyes and pull off my fingerless gloves, drop the weapon and immediately see the commander turn and start to run, realising he’s lost me, or rather, that I have found myself again, somehow in this place.

I rise, alone and see over, for the first and last time, in the split-second I have, all that was beyond the wall. There’s nothing, just a field and in the distance, another wall. There’s a minute flash, I tilt my head.

Do or die, do or die. Do or…

Building inspiration: Leningrad Sea Terminal