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15minuteficlets challenge
Jan. 17th, 2005 01:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynThis is Raiders of the Lost Ark fanfic, based on a moment that I never really wondered about until seeing the movie again last night.
The challenge word is 'anguish', and the premise... well, you'll see.
The rocks of our island have been our protectors, our fortress, since the oldest days of Greece. When the wars between the city-states raged in ancient history, they seldom came here. Our harbour is deep, yes, but narrow; it takes very little for a captain to see his boat's belly ripped out. Only the smugglers ever came. They had their coves, their caves, their boats with shallow keels- this was an island they liked. They came, they drank and made love and tried to cheat us. We raised our sheep, cheated them back. It was nothing big, it was always the way things were.
It was a very good way, and it lasted many years.
Greece is not a rich country any more. Our wars have not gone well. We have fought- oh, I do not know, we have fought so many, they all blend together... it does not matter. Most of them have passed this little island by. We raise our sheep and smile at the smugglers, as was always the way. It has been good. We plough the fields and sow, till the ground and reap, what is the government's strength to us? Nothing, really.
At least, so it was. We wish now, I think, that it had been more. It would have been nice if it had been more.
There are no more smugglers in these days, the coves have been taken from them. Not by the men in Athens. No, they have been taken from the smugglers by men from Germany, whose boats need no light bellies because they go under the surface. The Germans want this island and I do not know why. I do not want to know why, either. I keep my fine strong sons and my lovely daughter away from any place that the Germans might see, and I wait for the day when they will decide they do not need our island any more. I pray to God every night that the day comes soon.
Last night I think He may have answered me.
Today I am going with my son Andreas and leaving the sheep in the care of the other boys. They need to learn, and I need to see. There was a great light in the sky last night, very great, very terrible. It shone on the high places of the island. I did not see much more than that; when the sky lights at night like that you turn your face away, if you are wise. Andreas is old enough to steal my rifle and sneak out at night, thinking maybe to catch a German unawares. I do not know if he ever has, but he knows the paths as surely as a mountain-goat and I trust his feet far more than my own. Today he leads, and I follow.
The path he takes me on is long and narrow. He says it was not made by men, that the sheep and the wild things made it over many years. I use my stick for balance- it is too skinny for my feet. He needs no such aid, but scampers ahead of me as surely as if he were one of the very sheep he speaks of. He will be a good heir, I am sure of it-
“Papa,” he says, and there is such dread in his voice it chills my bones to hear it. “Papa, come quickly!”
To move quickly on this path is not a thing I like to contemplate, but he is frozen in his place, peering over the high rocks, and if I do not go to him now I think he may fall. I pass my prayers to the saints and go after him; he points to the space beyond the high rocks. “Papa,” says Andreas, “look there. Please?”
I do not remember the last time my son said “please” to me.
When I look to where Andreas is pointing, I see. . . I do not know what I see. There are sticks- poles- things scattered on the-
Skeletons. There are skeletons.
Beyond the high rocks there lies a little valley, a long crooked thing with a flat stony bottom. It would have made a fine theatre once, for a very small audience. I remember it well. We came to this place to play echoes when I was a boy. The ground slopes upward slowly until it reaches the highest flat place, so it is easy for even the lame of foot to reach. But I am looking at it now and I do not see the echo-theatre of my childhood. I see... I see death, really; I do not think there is another word for it. The skeletons of twenty? Thirty? More, maybe- that many skeletons litter the bottom of the echo-theatre, twisted in anguish, scattered as if by the hand of an angry God. There are scorches along the rocky walls of the little valley, and twisted lumps of things that maybe once were machines. Maybe they were something else, but there is a little gleam of metal to them. There are heaps of ashes, there are poles sticking out of the ground, there are shattered bits of glass. . .
“Papa,” says Andreas, who sounds sick. “What happened here?”
I do not know what to say to him, until a little crack in the clouds sets the sun to gleaming on something else. The tattered bit of cloth is mostly burnt, but it is brown in one place and red in another and oh, yes, there is the white and the black in the middle. It was a German uniform once. These men were Germans.
“The wrath of God, my boy,” I say to my son. “The wrath of God.”
The challenge word is 'anguish', and the premise... well, you'll see.
The rocks of our island have been our protectors, our fortress, since the oldest days of Greece. When the wars between the city-states raged in ancient history, they seldom came here. Our harbour is deep, yes, but narrow; it takes very little for a captain to see his boat's belly ripped out. Only the smugglers ever came. They had their coves, their caves, their boats with shallow keels- this was an island they liked. They came, they drank and made love and tried to cheat us. We raised our sheep, cheated them back. It was nothing big, it was always the way things were.
It was a very good way, and it lasted many years.
Greece is not a rich country any more. Our wars have not gone well. We have fought- oh, I do not know, we have fought so many, they all blend together... it does not matter. Most of them have passed this little island by. We raise our sheep and smile at the smugglers, as was always the way. It has been good. We plough the fields and sow, till the ground and reap, what is the government's strength to us? Nothing, really.
At least, so it was. We wish now, I think, that it had been more. It would have been nice if it had been more.
There are no more smugglers in these days, the coves have been taken from them. Not by the men in Athens. No, they have been taken from the smugglers by men from Germany, whose boats need no light bellies because they go under the surface. The Germans want this island and I do not know why. I do not want to know why, either. I keep my fine strong sons and my lovely daughter away from any place that the Germans might see, and I wait for the day when they will decide they do not need our island any more. I pray to God every night that the day comes soon.
Last night I think He may have answered me.
Today I am going with my son Andreas and leaving the sheep in the care of the other boys. They need to learn, and I need to see. There was a great light in the sky last night, very great, very terrible. It shone on the high places of the island. I did not see much more than that; when the sky lights at night like that you turn your face away, if you are wise. Andreas is old enough to steal my rifle and sneak out at night, thinking maybe to catch a German unawares. I do not know if he ever has, but he knows the paths as surely as a mountain-goat and I trust his feet far more than my own. Today he leads, and I follow.
The path he takes me on is long and narrow. He says it was not made by men, that the sheep and the wild things made it over many years. I use my stick for balance- it is too skinny for my feet. He needs no such aid, but scampers ahead of me as surely as if he were one of the very sheep he speaks of. He will be a good heir, I am sure of it-
“Papa,” he says, and there is such dread in his voice it chills my bones to hear it. “Papa, come quickly!”
To move quickly on this path is not a thing I like to contemplate, but he is frozen in his place, peering over the high rocks, and if I do not go to him now I think he may fall. I pass my prayers to the saints and go after him; he points to the space beyond the high rocks. “Papa,” says Andreas, “look there. Please?”
I do not remember the last time my son said “please” to me.
When I look to where Andreas is pointing, I see. . . I do not know what I see. There are sticks- poles- things scattered on the-
Skeletons. There are skeletons.
Beyond the high rocks there lies a little valley, a long crooked thing with a flat stony bottom. It would have made a fine theatre once, for a very small audience. I remember it well. We came to this place to play echoes when I was a boy. The ground slopes upward slowly until it reaches the highest flat place, so it is easy for even the lame of foot to reach. But I am looking at it now and I do not see the echo-theatre of my childhood. I see... I see death, really; I do not think there is another word for it. The skeletons of twenty? Thirty? More, maybe- that many skeletons litter the bottom of the echo-theatre, twisted in anguish, scattered as if by the hand of an angry God. There are scorches along the rocky walls of the little valley, and twisted lumps of things that maybe once were machines. Maybe they were something else, but there is a little gleam of metal to them. There are heaps of ashes, there are poles sticking out of the ground, there are shattered bits of glass. . .
“Papa,” says Andreas, who sounds sick. “What happened here?”
I do not know what to say to him, until a little crack in the clouds sets the sun to gleaming on something else. The tattered bit of cloth is mostly burnt, but it is brown in one place and red in another and oh, yes, there is the white and the black in the middle. It was a German uniform once. These men were Germans.
“The wrath of God, my boy,” I say to my son. “The wrath of God.”
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