An Endless Waltz

Shade Skypage

“Go, go, go!” yelled Martin’s commanding officer, “German artillery barrage!  Get in you’re friggin’ foxholes!” 
Martin ran.  It was his second time seeing combat, and no less terrifying than the first.  His good friend, Jeremy ran beside him, canteen banging against his legs as he ran, his M1 Garand rifle gripped tightly in his hand, the cold air making his knuckles whiter than seemed natural.  They leaped into the foxhole they’d dug only hours before, crouching down as they heard the impacts from the shelling.  Trees and pathes of the ground exploded around them, lighting up the night sky as snow, branches, and dirt were flung into the air with no concern of who might be in their path. 
            Martin saw a familiar face, white with panic, but undoubtedly his unit’s sharpshooter.   “Tex!” he yelled, “In here!” he continued, gesturing to the fox hole.  Tex, as the other men had come to call him, sprinted toward them, and as he dove to the foxhole, Martin’s world went white, and then spiraled into darkness. 

            “Martin!  Martin?” his mother called. 
            He walked over to her, his blanket he had carried everywhere as a child held tightly in a small fist. 
            “Come here.  I thought you wanted a story before you go to bed,” she said. 
            “Yes!  A story,” he repeated. 
            “All right,” his mother said, “This is a story that my mother, your grandma from Europe used to tell me, but you probably won’t understand it until you’re older,” she explained to the bright-eyed boy. 
            “Okay,” he said, sitting on his bed and patting a spot for her to sit beside him. 
            “Well, it goes like this,” she continued, “Once upon a time, there was a great swordsman, who had come from a small village.  He was so incredible that the king of the land offered him to become a knight to help keep the peace of and protect the land.  After a long time, though, the people became angry with the king, and were not happy with how he wanted the land to be, so they rebelled.  They didn’t want to be ruled by the king any more, so they eventually started a war, and killed many people, but the swordsman managed to get away, but he was injured, and couldn’t swing a sword again. 
            After a few years, he saw that the town he knew was happy once again, and the new king was happy as well, but eventually, that king too could not give the people what they wanted, so there was another rebellion, and another war.  That was why your grandmother would always say, ‘Just like when your father and I would dance,’ to me, when she talked about war.  
            ‘Time is like an endless waltz in 3/4 time,’ she would tell me.” She began to get a far away look in her eyes, “the three steps of War, Peace, and Revolution, they are, endlessly circling until time is not more.”  She looked to her son, and with a light kiss on the head, silently moved out of the room, turning out the light as she went. 

            Martin gasped, icy air filling his lungs. 
            “Are you okay?” Tex and Jeremy both asked him simultaneously. 
            He looked around, seeing that he was still in that foxhole, and the artillery fire had stopped.  “Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied. 
            “Good, because after the shockwave from that shell hit you, we thought you might be dead.  We were about to yell for the medic when we heard you muttering something in you sleep.  Something about and endless dance or something like that,” Jeremy said. 
            “Thanks,” Martin said, “I think I’ll be better than I’ve felt in a while actually.”