Oh, soldier boy.

Blush_01

This is the first installment, and also a first draft. Please throw as much advice as you can my way, I'd really appreciate it.




“Oh soldier, soldier, rescue me.”

At night in dreams Ceilí dreamed of a big, blonde, American soldier with shiny dog tags and muscle bound arms, picking her up from her bed. Under a hail of bullets he would run, with her dangling limp from sheer excitement in his arms, taking her to safety. But in the morning, she woke to flat sacking stuffed with old straw and flat dreams filled with deflated hope. At the well, as she filled the heavy jars for cooking, her reflection shone up at her. Spun-sugar blonde hair, freckles, an ordinary face and mischievous eyes, nothing special. Yet she felt a different destiny beckoning her to the one prescribed in the small-minded prophesies of her mother’s people. Underneath her ordinary exterior was a future bright and adventurous. If she could believe it, why could others not?

“Ceilí, a stór, stop dreaming, the work won’t wait for dreams.”
“I’m coming, a Mham!”
“Good girl.”

The slender bangles on her upper arms held the soft cloth of her tunic out of her way. Scrunched out of the way, her sleeves accordioned below her armpits. On the washboard she scrubbed soil and grass out of hemlines, food fragments off tunics and jerseys. Fine flakes of dried soap created a lather on the tight-woven fabrics, dyed vermillion and indigo, soft dark moss and fresh earth colours. Her spun-sugar hair was twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck and dangled over her right shoulder. As she got her scrubbing rhythm, she began to sing.

Oh soldier, soldier, rescue me, from a life of pleasant ease,
Take me aboard your shoulder broad, upon an easy breeze,
Upon your steed of beast or steel, and carry me away,
Oh soldier, soldier, rescue me, my heart longs for the day.

At night my dreams are filled with hope, and visions of your smile,
In morning mists, that cloud my eyes, I often cry a while,
For when I wake to find you gone, that you were but a dream,
I rub my eyes and turn to sleep, to find what might have been.

Oh soldier, soldier, rescue me, from this my life of ease,
Take me aboard your shoulders broad, and spirit me to peace,
In times of sorrow and of war, I dream my life away,
Oh soldier, soldier, rescue me, my heart longs for the day.

“Pet, what is that you’re singing?”
“Nothing a Mham”
“My darling, sweet and only child, don’t sell your heart to a fairy’s breath of a dream. I love you more than life itself, and so I promise you this. What you see in your minds eye is now painted with sunshine and moonbeams. But when you reach the crossroads where you have to choose between your soldier boy and a life of peace, make sure you choose the right one, or your rosy life could be a bed of thorns.”
“A Mham…”
“No, listen now mo stór. I will tell you a story of when I was but a young girl with feathers in my hair from the passing birds, and feet bare to the pine needles and the dry earth. Back then, I was the most beautiful girl in the village, as you are now, if you won’t believe it. True beauty lies not in the skin alone, craiceann cracks and fades, breaks with age and wrinkles with experience. But I was beautiful then, as you are now. In my dreams I saw a handsome sailor, as would come to me at night and save me from my bed, taking me to sea with him where we would live together in bliss and happiness. So, when my sailor did come and rescue me from my bed, and take me to his ship, I felt as though I had won all the best prizes in the world. I was the beauty of the village, and now I was to be the wife of a wise, strong and handsome sailor.
But he was not wise, nor strong. His handsome face faded when he was made weak and pitiful to me through his own actions. He took me to a ship, but not the ship of my pretty dreams. Here fish guts scattered about, and the smells of all the ills of the ocean accosted me. He did not notice, he was too used to it. Below deck, his bunk was shared with other men. There was no room for a foolish girl such as me. I did not know this, and I was giddy, foolish, eager. Too eager, as I now see it.
My love, don’t sell yourself for dreams. I did and still pay the price. When your handsome soldier comes, tell him what he asks, and ask him not to scoop you from your bed in a hail of gunfire. The eyes of romance are tinted with the softest shades of rose and beckon willing lovers towards them, but laugh cruelly at the tricks they then play upon those lovers’ souls. Mo stór, heed your mother in her hard-earned wisdom and save your heart for honesty and peace.”

Having listened through her mother’s tale of woe and warning, Ceilí felt a rage burn in her. How dare her mother, a wizened old potato no good to anyone, tell her who to love? Ceilí’s heart had been set upon this soldier for many long nights. In echoes of wind through the trees she could hear him call her name. She did not know his, but it did not matter, that would come with time. Brushing her mother’s hurtful words away, she agreed not to leave her poor Mham and the rest of her people. But in Ceilí’s heart remained an echo of the raining bullets, the limpness of her arms over his, and the feeling that despite her mother’s warnings, her soldier boy would be the man for her. Returning to her rhythmic scrubbing, her song was sung loud and clear in her head, the air rapping itself out like her knuckles on the washboard.

“Mam, where is the mangle, I need to get on.”

Her mother’s eyes pleaded with her one more time to keep a tight rein on her romantic dreams. But Ceilí’s eyes hardened. Her soldier boy was coming, and her destiny was to go with him. Nobody – least of all her old, feeble mother – would stop her from meeting the path laid out in her dreams.

Matt Holck

o _ 0
defiance
freedom
excitement
and tragedy
all fortold I want to hear more
aw but who would the adventure be with
the soldier boy or the man of peace

shiv

Blush, you try something completely different and you succeed

I love your phrasings, like a fairy's breath or wizened old potato. You've also got great natural storytelling rhythm...

Do you plan to continue it?

Odaise Gaelach

Very cool! Fabulous work Blush!