"Dulcē et decōrum est prō patriā morī." From Odes (III.2.13) by the Roman lyric poet Horace.

  A war tent stands tall with enough smoke inside that a man couldn’t be bmed for thinking that it had caught fmes. Two men are located within. One was standing looking out to the grassnds in front of him; the other peering over a wooden table with a map of the country spread over the table. A knife's bdes puncture the tables, and bottles are lying about.

  "Looking at a map doesn’t change anything.” A blond man says, turning his head away from the grassnds. Back to the man eyeing the map with a pipe hung in his mouth and rage within his mind.

  “At least I’m doing more than looking at the scenery.” A brown-haired, gsses-wearing man says. Moving figures shaped from wood around. The hazel-eyed man with bckened circles puffs away at his pipe. “Godsdamn!” The brown-haired, hazel-eyed, bckened-circles, gsses man yells with his pipe still hanging in his mouth.

  The blond man stands, leaning on the entryway with a dark brown pipe of his own hanging in his mouth. With his own pair of bloodshot eyes filling his dark blue and light green eyes.

  Thud, thud, thud, thud. A pair of a man’s boots hit against the soil. A long, silver longsword, type XIX, hangs from the man with a belt. Next to the bde lies a Colt Single Action Army revolver. A conquistador helmet sits on this man’s head, the only piece of armor on his person… If those of bdes and guns aren't considered armor anymore. A white blouse and bck pants were what repced pieces of iron. White wrap covers the feet of the runner. Light brown hair is what y underneath the helmet. Spots of blood old and dried stain the blouse. The boots of the boots were bck leather boots caked with dirt, mud, dust, and bits of blood, gore even. A long pale envelope lies in his armpit. Nothing, not even the smallest sum of dirt or dust, lies upon the corridors’ envelope. Thud, thud, thud, thud.

  “My King, I’m here with a current report on the war.”

  Alexander takes the envelope from the man, and Albert takes the envelope from Alexander. Alexander reached his hand out to the corridor.

  “Thank you, my good man.”

  “Thank you, my King.”

  “Oh, for Fuck’s sake!” Albert while throwing the thick envelope onto the table.

  “My King is he…”

  “He's alright.”

  “Godsdamned!”

  Alexander looks back into the tent. “Yeah, he's alright, my good man.”

  “Thank you, my King. I’m heading back to work.”

  “Stay safe.”

  Thud, thud, thud.

  Alexander closes the tent roll.

  “You couldn’t wait a single minute before that young man's life.”

  Albert pushed about a dozen papers into Alexander's chest. Grabbing the papers pushed into chest, Alexander takes one of the throw-around chairs and takes out the pair of reading gsses in his breast pocket. While Alexander reads through the paper, Albert grows ever so rageful. Smoking heavily upon his pipe and filling the room with ever greater sums of smoke.

  Alexander pces down the paper and folds his reading gsses back to his breast pocket. “Well, this is certainly a poor turn of events.”

  “Poor turn of EVENTS! They order fucking martial w!”

  “Yes, they must have gotten a smell of what we were pnning.”

  “How? We never discuss it with another soul other than ourselves… Could they have overhead us? But we only ever spoke in our own private tongue. Damn!”

  “Our next move will be the most important. Every step we take could be a sinkhole. Our battle is not like those that are happening upon the map, as we both know, my friend. It will be our hardest battle of wits we may ever take part in. If what we do is ever exposed, then our necks will surely be rung, and the corrupt will run these nds until the mass revolt by theirselfs. But imagine how many will perish if such a thing would occur. We cannot act out or act a fool. This battle is, like, all one for our very lives, but this battle is the greatest a man could fight for. One for his very country. So, Albert, within this battle… within this war we may become and do things that will consume our very souls with the stain of evil. I must hope for your continued support in this rather selfish mission. As I know, if I were to sit any longer, the nd that I belove will perish from corruption and vile. I will stand and battle till my skin becomes redden by that of the blood of the corrupted.”

  “You knew that I didn’t need such a long-winded speech to compel me to stand by your side, Alexander. I’m far too deep within this to even dare turn my head back, so no more with you asking for my support. Because if your skin is to turn red, so will my own. Now let's get back to this bloody war and open that roll. It looks like our tent has been lighten afme.”

  The two men ready theirselfs for the war against the demons and that of their very own parliament. The thought that must run by any man's mind during this period. That of the ideal of how “it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s nation.”

  Blue is the night on the ocean. Crashes of waves and silence are the only company. The poor sod who draws the short stick stands as the captain behind the wheel. Cold is a night on the great blue.

  Bckness was forming around the edges of my eye. A feminine voice keeps ringing through my head, just repeating, “V. V! I have to talk to you.” It seems no matter what. An abyss always creeps its way into my being to torment my existence. A second I slip away into this endless bckness. A pce where only two days or so ago one of my students got his heart blown clean out of his chest.

  “V?” I feel a finger poke me.

  “Jesus!”

  “What?” Celeste says, jumping back a bit due to a mixture of fear of being stabbed and simple confusion.

  “Sorry, my mind had just gone adrift.” I speak, trying to soothe any sense of fear Celeste could have stumbled upon with my reaction.

  “No, I’m sorry. I saw you slump over and was checking on you. Sorry if I just woke you up when you were finally able to dose off.”

  “An apology is unnecessary in this. I should actually thank you for the poke. I was heading to a location that rather bothersome."

  “Alright.”

  “What are you doing up at such a te hour?”

  “Oh, I woke up, and been unable to fall back asleep. So I went on a walk around the ship to try and tire myself out.”

  “That's good. Sleep is very important for the youth.”

  “They say it's important for everyone.”

  “If worry for my own health awoke you, I apologize, but sleep has abandoned this being that is sitting in front of you.” I said while opening the piano’s fallboard.

  “Don’t worry. It has nothing to do with you, V. Just something from the past.” Celeste continued to talk, getting ever so much farther away from me till she finished her sentences at the banister. I pull the pipe I stole from my coat pockets and light it. A light forms from the banister, and the smell of a cigarette blows downwind to me.

  “This isn't a good habit to pick up, kid.” With a puff of smoke coming out of my mouth when I spoke.

  “It feels pleasant when you get past the burning and coughing, the smell as well."

  My fingers start pying a very rexed version of Zevon’s Desperados Under the Eaves. “Something burdening your mind?”

  "No, just exhausted but unable to sleep.”

  “Don’t really know what to do; not much of a human being these days, kid.” A wind blows upon us. Flipping our clothes and blowing our smoke all over the pce. “There’s the second kid you’ve given me in this conversion.”

  “I mean, to me, you’re a kid, kid. Fifteen, maybe sixteen years behind. Too bad you're acting like me in my twenties instead of seventeen.”

  “How did you act when you were seventeen?”

  “I don’t remember all to well. Twelve years of boozing does that to a mind, but I act like any other. Finishing college, reading, watching TV, and other such things.” My fingers start to change from Eaves to his version of Splendid Isotion from a live show in '92.

  “Putting tinfoil up on the windows

  Lying down in the dark to dream

  I don't wanna, I don't wanna see their faces

  And I don't wanna, I don't wanna hear them scream

  Splendid isotion

  I don't need no one

  Splendid isotion” Me “singing” old Zevon song in this great old darkness with some blue for fvor.

  “What are you doing over there?” Celeiste says while turning towards me.

  “Nothing, really. Just filling the abyss with something.”

  “I think that smoke helps with rexing me enough. I’m heading back to the sleeping corridors. Tried to get at least a single minute of sleep, V.”

  “Goodnight, Celeste.” My head did not turn to give this massage, just staring at the piano.

  “Goodnight, V”

  I continue to py the piano for the rest of the night. I’m not sure why I’m still pying; maybe it really is about just filling the abyss.