MicroHorror

I followed him in. I knew he was here. This is a very short tunnel. I would have seen him exit–only I didn’t. At the moment I entered, all sound of battle ceased. I stopped dead in my tracks because of the silence–the emptiness. It was the emptiness that stilled me.

A soldier does his duty. I had killed many times, had looked in the face of the enemy as I killed. I had never felt futility ’til now. Whoever was victor here, whoever perished, no one would ever know the truth, for we were in the midst of battle.

I cowered against the shadow of the wall. Perhaps he was lying in wait. I had come in from the brightness and so he would have the advantage. I held my breath to hear his. There was nothing. I crawled forward a pace, two paces, towards the grey parabola of light. Inched forward ever watchful, to where sunlight sliced the shadow.

There was no penumbra. I never in my life saw such a sharp divide.

I made to advance cautiously into the cobbled courtyard. I could see the ordnance-pocked red brick of the wall and the barrack with its blank windows. There should be weapons trained on me. There should be a defense–yet all was quiet.

I held my hand out into the light where it could be seen. Still the blank windows stared back in silence. And when I looked down my hand was not there. I snatched it into the shade and it reappeared, solid and cold to the touch. Gradually I protruded it again. Its disappearance caused me to retract sharply. I tried to step out but with the same result and quickly brought my leg, I hoped, back in.

I paced within the shadow, rested, paced again. I have seen others come and go in the courtyard out there but heard no sound but the sound of my own pleas sinking into nothingness and the pad of my own feet on the dank earth. Behind me there is only utter darkness, no sign of the way by which I entered here–nothing left of the pursuit or chase. Before me this seeming apparition of a place plays out a tale in which I have no part. Emptiness and silence are my doom.

Out there in the courtyard where time passes, soldiers have mustered, people walked, children played. Now visitors troop in and out in strange garb. The sun appears and disappears; the cobbles are washed by rain. Only here there is no time. I am cut off from all that moves on. I alone remain–questioning.

Where did he go, my mortal enemy, my best friend? Did he go to her? Did he go to Eloise–my Eloise? I used to hate it when I thought of that but now I am the houseguest of futility. I have learned all I can from anger and despair. I only know that I did not kill him and he did not kill me and for that I am glad. And now it is my hope that they lived long and happily.

Wait–is that a different shade of grey I see? A penumbra? Might I just reach out a little way into the light? Please, God, just a little way… just a little way into the light…