A short story

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"Reflecting Shadows"

"Tomorrow will tell," scratched the quill into the yellowing page, "and for now I can only watch and wait."

I turned the page and continued writing. "They are moving the battering-rams, the ladders, the towers all to the front; it appears the siege is reaching a climax, rather, a complete resolution. Our deaths are imminent, and we shall be forgotten as victims of an unprovoked, meaningless conquest. The air of the fortress' corridors has always felt heavy with bleakness and desperation, but now that desperation has begun to waver with acceptance."

A conversation to my left interrupted me. "Three dozen more blades? Why? What difference could that make?!" challenged a bitter, incredulous voice.

"Would you rather send three dozen men into battle naked?!" another man shouted.

"It would change nothing! This defense is pointless! We will be overrun in minutes, and every one of us slaughtered!" the bitter pessimist replied. His voice sounded only of hostility; there was no remorse in his last sentence. Both men fell silent.

I examined their faces. The first's face displayed dejection, the second projected determination, but both were at peace. That peace was on each of hundreds of faces around me in the dim courtyard of the late afternoon.

Regardless, the pessimist restated my own thoughts. After staring down at the unforgiving words I had written, I took up the book and closed it. It was bound in black leather, with a long crack down the spine where it had been opened and closed too often. Another nearby argument caught my ear, and so I opened it again and found a new page to resume writing.

“Hah! You think they will spare you, for your lame leg? You should pray not! Better for them to kill you swiftly now, than to live in pain or slavery!" This new voice laughed, without merriment. I wrote:

"The brutality of these attackers is oft-told legend. They show no compassion for the living, nor do they show reverence for the dead. Mangled, half-eaten remains of those who surrender often lie strewn about their campsites in the aftermath of a battle. The crippled man, who hopes for mercy, would quickly regret this desire if it were granted."

The crippled man's dim, colorless eyes lingered on my writing from across the plaza, but when I looked up to him he turned away. I glanced to his laughing tormentor; he turned away as well.

Notebook in hand, I rose and began wandering slowly away from the scene. Today had lingered for too long, and it seemed to me to drag its feet through time the way a holiday's eve slows for young children. Roaming in the dank corridors was little consolation. Metal clanging echoed and mingled with distant conversations. Each ragged gray stone in the thick walls was somber and silent. Those cold walls pressed against me, the faraway gray ceiling spun dizzily, the stone ground chilled the soles of my feet.

For hours, I wandered through the gray halls and courtyards in a tenebrous fog. Night had begun to fall, and I paused at a metal-barred window to watch the armies outside work in the light of their fires. On the crest of a distant hill, their outlines were backlit by the setting sun while they prepared their weapons and supplies for the morning. A single tent, presumably the general's, was clearly visible even at this distance: it loomed over the rest of the tents and cast a threatening shadow into the valley.

A choked sob sounded behind me. Slouched against a wall, arms folded, a woman looked up as I turned. She tugged anxiously at her gray hood. Grief had aged her face, and creased it with worry.

"They both left," she murmured, "my husband and my only son, both to join their units and ready themselves for the defense." Was she talking to me? I was silent. I couldn't find words to comfort her. She bit her lip and looked at the ground while I stood numbly watching. The woman turned and sprinted away. A simple wooden ring fell from her hand and bounced to my feet. I took it. Its warmth was calming.

"Her immense sorrow," I scratched into my book, "will be short-lived. A preacher in the main courtyard earlier today inspired us to have faith in our future. It may seem extremely short from here, but an end tomorrow is really another beginning.” My thoughts returned to the preacher and his ragtag congregation. Again, I dipped my quill.

"He never shouted, like other preachers did. The other priests and preachers I've known kept their voices sharpened, using their words of faith as tools of threat instead of beacons of hope and comfort. This man, though, spoke softly and passionately, with easy confidence even in the face of his own fast-approaching demise.

“'Friends,' he said, 'recall the words of Deuteronomy 23:14: For the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and give your enemies over to you; therefore your camp shall be holy.. The Lord is indeed walking now to our front gates to deliver us. Though we shall be the ones to leave this earth to-morrow, we can leave in purity and holiness, in the glory that only the Lord our God can bestow upon us.'

'Never despair; regardless of what happens to us tomorrow, remember there are other, more beautiful worlds to sing in.' He smiled.

"Even I could feel the crowd's unease lift and float away," I wrote. "His words have rung true to me. My experience inside this fortress has often felt surreal, disorienting. I know, then, that this cannot be the end of my existence; it is as if I am just preparing to awaken and begin the real life. A more beautiful world does await." I turned the page. "Tomorrow will tell."

* * *

I awoke in unfamiliar surroundings. Had I died peacefully in the night, to rise in this lavish tent? With a new sense of hurried unease, I sat upright and stumbled through the tent's opening.

Across the valley, the gray fortress loomed and cast a familiar sort of long, gloomy shadow.

"My God!" I exclaimed. A uniformed man appeared at my side.

"What is it, sir?" he asked eagerly.

"I-- the fortress--". My tongue had knotted itself.

"Yes, General, it stands. Everything has been prepared since an hour ago, but you still slept quite soundly. It shall fall." He puffed his chest out proudly and rested one hand on his sword's hilt.

He obviously told the truth—everything was prepared.. A sea of pikes and shields stretched down the glen, nearly up to the stronghold's gates. Catapults on both sides were loaded and cocked, one thin rope away from launching a thousand tons of destruction. The surreal, dreamy quality of my similar observations last night had disappeared and the cold reality presented itself: the fortress would fall.

In one hand, my familiar cracked notebook had escaped my notice. Had it stayed with me through my sleep, and I had held it this whole time? Astonished, I slowly opened it to the last written page. Across the top of the paper, I read "Tomorrow will tell." I turned to the previous page: an elaborate diagram of cavalry movements adorned the entire page, with notes in my own hand all around.

So the sobbing woman, the angry, bitter peasants inside the fortress? Were they still awaiting death, or had they existed only in my imagination? I reeled and shut my eyes.

"At your command, sire," pressed the soldier anxiously.

My other hand clutched a wooden ring.

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