The dawn breaks the horizon in soft lavender and orange, and the morning breeze skim over the fields. The wheat heads whisper and rasp when touch each other. Where the fields meet the sky, a bead shines. A bubble of spring, a small but mighty bead of scarlet it is, and defies them all – land and sun and rain.
You know from your father and grandfather that it is a weed. You have to pluck it out for it will spread and kill your crops.
In the morning, with a bundle of bread and water, you start your journey. You tread through the fields without a path to follow but the glow of that scarlet bead.
You know the language of the nature. You know when the wind will whisper or wuther, and the rain will drizzle or downpour, and the sun will warm or scorch the fields. For all, land and nature and you, have been created by the same gods.
The clouds charge with dark energy and a lightening halves the sky and a thunder cracks over the land and the hell opens up. Rain and wind blur the horizon and you lose the sight of the bead. Yet you put the hood on and plant your foot and go step by step.
The storm goes away and a rainbow smiles ahead.
A grasshopper rests on a stalk of wheat and waits for the sun warmth. It rubs its hind legs against the wings and hops ahead. And it makes another hop and another to mark your way. Its coarse yet muffled call carries over the wheat fields.
At twilight you reach the bead. You bend and stretch a hand to pluck it out. But you can’t.
A poppy she is. Her little torch glows in the darkened day. A delicate flower, a sweet fragrance, a majestic apparition. The scarlet petals melt to carmine with a black heart in the centre.
One petal has fallen on the land, beaten and buried beneath. Yet, she stands, taken the watch over the peace in the fields. Bright, graceful, steadfast. She has chosen this place to grow. A seed taken by winds and birds, and cared for by land and rain.
A piece of memory of your ancestors. A drop of blood of the fallen soldiers. For you have forgotten to hold the torch high.
You kneel down and lift the fallen petal. In an instant, another poppy grows and opens next to her and another. A string of scarlet and carmine black beads mark a path to the quiet place where the soldiers’ crosses abide.
One of these crosses marks your father’s grave. He went to fight a war that he did not start, nor did he understand. He came back only to be laid here to peace.
The same will happen to you but you do not know it yet. For The Great War will trigger a greater war, with weapons more sophisticated, and the art of killing the fellow human mastered.
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