The day looks overcast, warm and muggy. The grass is stiff-looking, patched with green and sandy brown, the colors of thirst from a hot summer, or perhaps a warm and dry spring. A camellia tree, leaves polished emerald, bears two pink flowers, as if wanting to hang on to the last grasping idea of cooler spring, long over as the calendar has spilled into warmer days.
There is no shade where she lies, stretched out on her belly on a dull, gray blanket, a half-empty bottle of water propped against her purse next to her, along with a denim jacket that looks far too large for her; it isn't hers. It's a token she wears of a life gone past -- what was wanted, what could have been, what was planned, and what was taken. Worn for memory and a cooler morning. Two people at the edge of the lawn -- one standing, the other, seated in a wheelchair, legs askew in the angle of loss -- look out across the expanse of white stones and grass. It's unknown if they are connected to her, but they share a similar, unspoken reason for visiting.
Her feet are bare and crossed, the soles dusty-colored and speaking of a preference for sandals and flip-flops -- or perhaps nothing at all. Her skin is pale and clear, and the strapless, black and white polka-dot sundress she wears looks wrinkled and comfortably thin; her thick and pretty brown-gold hair is caught up in a bun to keep it off her neck and from acting like an insulating scarf in the humid heat.
Before her, fresh with new flowers, is a white marble sentry. More wash out next to her and on and on and on into the distance -- white blurs standing at attention, posture erect and perfect and permanent. One has fluttering mylar balloons -- blue stars and circles touched with gold and yellow -- and a thick sheaf of flowers that match the flag next to it on the ground. Others also have flowers. Some have none, bringing a deeper, further sense of loneliness and quiet.
She is still.
Her shoulders are curved so greatly the bones are points; her head is heavy and bowed to the ground as she whispers her day and week, talks of little things, of something she saw on television she thought he would like -- a funny moment, bittersweet and unshared. She whispers to him, in the same way done at night by couples planning out lives of shared bills and frustrations, joys and explorations.
Except now there is no answer, no innocent excitement. The future became the past, lost like a lone balloon torn loose from a storefront -- rising and rising into the void of the sky, lost in the sun, rising into emptiness.
She whispers nothing, for nothing can be said. He cannot hear her -- though a part of her, perhaps great, perhaps small -- believes he does. Perhaps she tries to believe he's in a better place...but in such moments, in moments when the darkness of the early morning hours yawn out into a loneliness so great it suffocates, those platitudes -- ones spoken by people who bear no knowledge of how truly insipid and cruel they are -- foster nothing but jealousy, hatred and anger for the ground which now holds, like a cold and worm-ridden mistress, what she has lost. Time does not heal such wounds; it is only trickery from a protective heart and mind that creates the hope that bandages will come.
There are no accolades for her, for anyone like her. The wives and husbands left behind to scrabble-scratch through the day, ignoring the worry and anxiety that leaves them breathless in those same dark and chasmic hours...or even in unsuspecting moments as groceries are bought, as laughing children are sent off to school. There are no medals or holidays for them, for the fiancees and girlfriends and boyfriends, the mothers and fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, cousins, friends who hold things up while the source of their worry is away in lands hot with Biblical-aged dust, ones of razor cold and caves. Lands cast with moisture-dripping jungles, or skies thick and black with the terrible, deafening bellow of B-17s and P-51 Mustangs. Neither side provides decorations for those who remain behind. It's simply expected. And it is also that weight she bears.
It is a moment felt by someone attached to each of the headstones, somewhere at some time. A moment that broke open, raw and savage and stunning, no less so than a mortar releasing its metal-sharded violence. There was a moment when those moments at night, when the exchanges of hopeful lovers flew upwards with the shining, searing glory of fireworks on a clear, early July night, becoming impermanent and translucent. Nothing more than a ring on a finger and a collection of photographs, emails, letters and text or voicemail messages lingering on a phone.
She lies on her stomach, whispering to him.
The wind, hissing and shushing through the bushes and trees around her, becomes the reply. It carries the voices of all those around her, who became silent and erased. The voices of those who felt fear and homesickness, loss as thick as what is felt by those they left in an alien world of civilian clothes and traffic jams, home repairs and Friday night football, things those voices thirsted for as they crouched in armored camouflage, heavy with government-issue rations and weapons. Voices that had laughter and sorrow, flus, paper cuts and stubbed toes wrapped in curses shot towards the source of the pain. Voices that left shaving bits in the sink, refrigerator doors open, or shoes shucked at the top of the stairs. Annoyances worth gold and gems she now craves.
But there is no voice that can speak the meaning of her moment. There are no words anywhere, just the faraway silence of the stars.
