One Lucky Soldier

A White Feather

Background Information: During World War I, white feathers were a symbol of cowardism, handed to young men seen out of uniform, proof that they were not serving their country in The Great War.

The Diary of Rosaline Hall

17th April 1916

The best way I can think to describe the sensation of life is by likening it to the sensation of falling. Imagine life like an abys, and upon birth we are all unknowingly pushed into it, our fingertips brushing the gentle hands of our mother as we let go. We blindedly fall, the darkness engulfing us, making choices based on our own knowledge and not of the picture beneath us that we are hidden from. But the falling, the horrific feeling that pulses through our veins and renders us helpless, is softened by the knowledge that those who we love, and those who love us, are beneath us. Arms outstretched and ready.

That's how I saw life - that's how I've always seen it, and there's nothing worse than the agonising pain, that replaces the feeling of uncertainty, when you realise that they are gone. That instead of falling into the arms of your loved ones, you are just once again falling down a bottomless pit: scared, vulnerable, and alone. 

I am falling, and I have nobody left to catch me. My loved ones are being knocked down like birds falling from the sky midflight, a hunter cheering viciously in the distance. As I fall blindedly through life, I tend not to notice the slight changes around me that turn out to be the most significant differences that I should take notice of. A dripping noise, for example. One might assume that to be a leaky tap, as I did, and not even skip across the conclusion that perhaps your mother is hanging down from the top of the stairs with a noose around her neck, and her wrists slit which were dripping blood onto the tiled floor.

My father will always carry a gun now. These significant changes affect you, you collect weaponary and wisdom as you fall down the abys which makes you feel safer as you fall, but it does not cushion your landing. He has hardened by it. He just sits in the living room all day with his gun tucked behind his cushion, staring at the door. Waiting. He rarely speaks to me, but if somebody put me or somebody I loved in harms way - he would shoot. And that scares me. Oh Lord, it scared me.

But I need not dwell on the past. My present is damaged enough without memories of the past to contaminate it.

Yesterday, I lost Russell. I watched in horror as his body fell limply to the floor. I watched as the white feather had he had been clutching floated innocently beside him, its whiteness remaining uncorrupted by the dirt of the earth. I watched, just as everybody else, as the woman who had handed him the feather let him fall. I watched as he died.

About a week ago, Russell and I decided to run away together. I was getting no sense out of my father, and Russell had managedin his insolent and reticent to push all of his family away. We truly only had each other, which seemed at the time to be the most romantic situation and the perfect reason to run away together and to continue our existence in peaceful solitary. 

Last night, we were going to put the plan into action. I had packed my stuff and I was to meet Russell just outside his house as the clock struck seven - I was so prepared, I had tied up every loose-end and given my Father a kiss on the cheek and the instructions to cook, clean and fend for himself. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

And then I saw it: The White Feather. It was just hovering in mid-air, floating hesitantly towards the ground. I watched as it settled next to another white feather. And then another. And then another. Until I realised that these white feathers were creating a trail - A trail that began at the door of my front door, leading me somewhere dangerously into the unknown.