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The Field

Mark Joseph Kiewlak

    The little girl was picking flowers. I was moving with the troops across the field, toward her position. She did not see us, and when she did, she seemed not to care. The enemy was closing in fast. I could hear their approach.
    I decided to warn her, to try to help. If I made too much noise I would alert the enemy to our position. I was crouched behind an outcropping of rock near the center of the field. She was sitting with her legs tucked under her, gathering the flowers in her lap. She wore a pretty cotton dress.
    When she lifted her head in my direction I began to wave and then to point at the men closing in behind her in the distance. She smiled but did not acknowledge me in any other way. I knew then what to do. Get the men out of there. Take the battle somewhere else. Before she got hurt.
    Thankfully I was never given the chance to do this.
    Gunfire exploded all around. It did not matter who fired first. We were at war. In my mind I saw the girl struck down, fatally wounded in our crossfire. I saw innocence slaughtered and the universe did not seem to care.
    I saw this, but it did not happen that way.
    The girl continued to pick her flowers. Chunks of earth were torn up around her. Bullets tore bark from helpless trees. Boots heavy with shame crushed all life in their path. She did not seem to notice.
    I was out in the open now, making a run for her while there was still time. I thought she might be deaf, but the ground itself shook with our battle. I did not know what to think.
    Then the girl lifted her head and her eyes spoke to me. They said something simple. They said “Hello.” A bullet whizzed past my ear and I took cover in the tall grass, still a universe away from her. I was praying and clutching the cold steel of my weapon when another thought occurred.
    She was sent here.
    For me.
    For me to notice.
    Men were falling dead in the field. Men on both sides. We were killing each other and this was our choice. But what if we made a different choice?
    No one stopped now for the girl. I don’t know if they saw her. I didn’t even know if she was real. They were hand to hand now, some of them, literally tearing each other to pieces right in front of her. There was no blood on her dress. No blood on her flowers.
    I saw everything stop. As if I had stepped outside of it. The men were frozen in place. And then they were moving again.
    I stood up in the field and laid down my weapon. I shed all encumbrances except for the most basic clothing. The bullets and the screams were all around. I took off my dog tags last and let them fall softly to the soil. I was feeling good about myself for the first time in a long time. I went to where the girl was sitting and sat down next to her. I began to pick flowers.
    This went on for some time, each of us gathering what flowers we could. I no longer felt the danger. I knew that neither of us would be harmed by what was occurring between the others. I did not know how I knew.
    “Catherine,” she said. “That’s my name.”
    I returned her smile and became lost for an instant in the glistening of her long blond hair. Her voice was as I expected. Music.
    “I’m John,” I said. “This used to be my war.”
    She laughed at that, a soft giggle that I could somehow hear so clearly, despite the deafening artillery that was turning the land into a crater.
    “This is a good spot,” I said, “for picking.”
    “I’m done now,” she said.
    And as she said it she gathered all the flowers together from her lap and stood up. She began to walk away without so much as a backward glance.
    I stood up as well and surveyed my surroundings. The men were all dead, I think, but I no longer concerned myself with their state.
    “Me too,” I said. “Me too.”

    The next question on my mind was who I should tell, if I should tell anyone. But they already knew.
    I was called into the office of my commander.
    “We don’t have to fight,” I said.
    He was unconvinced.
    “If we don’t fight,” I said, “everything will be okay.”
    Still unconvinced.
    “We can’t know this,” I said, “until we stop fighting. The decision must come first.”
    On a whim perhaps he took me with him to the front lines. We were breathing in the carnage. Despair was strangling every heart.
    “Let’s just stop,” I said. “And see what happens.”
    He laughed at this and then I took him by the hand. He tried to pull away, but not really. He wanted to be a part of what was coming.
    We strode together onto the field of battle. Tanks and planes and bombs and bullets. They were silly now from this perspective. They were useless toward a good heart and meaningless toward an open one.
    “What the hell is happening?” my commander said.
    “They can’t hurt you,” I said, “because you’re beginning to believe.”
    “In what?”
    An explosion shook the ground but we never lost our footing.
    “Yourself,” I said.

    We weren’t going to fight. That was the decision being made. The ripple was bigger all the time as it moved outward from our small center. Individuals were removing themselves from situations that could only end badly. They were giving themselves a chance now, for something better. So many were turning and walking in grace away from their conflicts.
    I discovered that I could go anywhere, speak to anyone, without fear of harm.
    I was with the enemy now, who had in their own way been experiencing the same phenomenon.
    “You don’t see the reason anymore, do you?”
    The enemy leader remained silent.
    “We weren’t getting anywhere, any of us.”
    He was as my commander had been.
    “We have inward directions far more exciting to travel.”
    Afraid.
    “It’s a strange feeling,” I said, “to take the pain away from ourselves.”
    He drew a gun on me. I was still the enemy of course.
    “Let’s go,” I said, “and pick some flowers.”

    No one had ever thought much about it. We were harming ourselves for no reason. It was silly. All the drama.
    Strange ideas were abounding. There was chaos. But there were also those who walked amid the chaos. I was one of them.
    I was back in the field. A long time had passed. It was overgrown again with beauty. The girl was there.
    “What will we do without it?” I said.
    We were staring up at the sky, making shapes with the sunshine in empty air.
    “I mean, I know it was unnecessary, but we had been hurting ourselves for a long time. How do we get used to only goodness?”
    She smiled a smile that was just for me. A special secret smile. She had thousands more.



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