Colors of Peace

My ears won’t ever stop ringing, he thought, as he set his rifle on the ground next to him. Close enough to grab at a moment’s notice — but far enough to forget about for seconds at a time.

He looked around and saw that the other boys were in similar states: Matias shook his head like a dog with a flea in his ear, David was face-down on the table, his head in his hands.

“Headache?” he asked. David looked up, and when his eyes met he thought he would vomit. David’s left eye — at least what had been once his left eye — was mincemeat.

“A bit,” said David. Silence, for a moment. A long moment. Possibly days, or weeks. Then, they laughed.

It made no sense, it shouldn’t have been funny. Perhaps it was this rare moment of stillness and quiet; even the far-off cannons had ceased firing. Or it could’ve been the beautiful, deep-red Paella that Ana Luz had served for them; after all, they hadn’t eaten warm food in weeks. Then again, it could’ve been the mere presence of Ana Luz herself: her kind, gray eyes as she tenderly broke fresh bread for each of them. The afterthought of a floral aroma that followed in her wake as she passed by, serving them wine. The deep lines in her round face — drawn first by years of laughter, set more recently by worry and the ever-encroaching tragedy that came with the sound of artillery.

Where are her sons? he thought, chewing as he watched Ana Luz gently washing David’s wound with a practiced hand.

He hadn’t seen his own mother since he ran away, afraid that she would try to stop him. His mother would not have understood, could not have understood. He had tried to explain about the Brigade, about the good fight they were fighting a world away. He reasoned with her, noting that it could only be a brave, noble group of boys that called themselves after the greatest president in American history, the pride of Illinois. So he had left, he had not said goodbye.

Later, when Ana Luz — after filling their stomachs and making up soft cots in her warm barn for them — hugged him goodnight, something snapped inside of him. He was not a soldier, he was a boy. His group within the Lincoln Brigade had gone from 100, to 50, to him, David, and Matias. His mother was thousands of miles away, and it was dark outside. Bad, scary things happen in the dark, in the forest.

He could not help it, her hug was too much, and by the time he had begun he did not know what he was crying for. Was it for peace? For home? For an end to the thrill and the fear?

He did not know.

Not ten hours later, as he cradled what had once been Matias and felt his own life pour out, he closed his eyes and saw Ana Luz once more. But her eyes were not gray, they were blue. She did not speak Spanish, but her words came in the twang from his town, his people. It wasn’t a floral smell that beckoned her approach: he smelled fresh baked bread and cut grass.

Surely, this was not Ana Luz. Surely he was not alone in a field in Spain, he must still be a boy waiting for his mother in the field next to their own little house. Of course! And the hand he felt on his chest was surely his mother’s hand! For he would recognize it anywhere. The warmth of it, the gentle power. He knew he did not imagine it, he knew it was real.

He knew, too, that when his mother called him home, he would always listen.

And so she did, and so he went.