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As part of my duties as a Teacher's Assistant for the Storytelling class, I wrote a series of one-page short stories about a character in the Ricocheteers universe. Celia Fate is a child-soldier coming to terms with herself in the face of the end of the Great War. Students spent much of the class postulating about the themes of the story, the enigma of Albion, and researching the inspiration for the setting of the story--World War I.
22nd of April, 1919
Major Albion Vale Aboll,
It has been 120 days since the Battle of Thulenberg and I have yet to hear from you. Are you well? When I last saw you, your wounds were quite severe. They told me you had been reassigned somewhere up north of No Man’s Land. But they would not tell me where. I tried to go to visit you, but Dr. Nightley would not allow me to leave the hospital. When can I see you again? Please write back as soon as possible.
I have learned to write my left hand now and I have learned to speak Anglish better. I practiced everyday. It has been quite difficult, but I knew you would not approve of anything less than a complete recovery. Dr. Nightley says I will be capable of returning to my ordinary duties soon, but she said you do not wish for me to return to the military. I do not understand why this would be. Have I not served you well? I know I am still young and I cannot carry very much, but I have never struggled to keep up with the grown-up recruits while on the march. I hope that you will please reconsider me for the position, sir.
I never saw Thulenberg before the war, but you promised you would take me to see the gardens of Thulenberg Palace when they reopened. Lieutenant Zedé offered to take me, but I do not want to go without you. She said they are overgrown with weeds and dandelions now anyway. I want to go and see the violets, like in Parisia. I want to see what they look like when they are in bloom. I want to see the fields of bloom rainbows and the butterflies that waltz in the sunlight. I like the sunlight a lot. In Parisia, it always rained.
I also want to smell the honey and taste the sweet tea at the cafés. Unfortunately, most of the cafés in Thulenberg are still closed after the battle. But there is one nearby the other officers like to frequent. They say the owner’s dog is still there, waiting for him to return. The dog walks with a limp and is very dirty, but they all feed him and promise him his owner will return soon. But we all know the man is dead. His sister runs the café now and she serves us army ration coffee and black-market sugar. I hope some day I can have real sugar too. You said it was sweeter.
I have been able to help around the hospital while await assignment. It smells much nicer than Cleigne but not quite as good as Parisia. Especially now, since they burned the amputees’ limbs, it smells less of rot. There have been some causes of the flu, but we have not yet lost anyone here. Dr. Nightley says I could not be a nurse, because you cannot tie bandages in a sanitary manner with your teeth. She is always proposing alternate professions for me. I do not understand why she keeps insisting I consider “my future outside of the military” since I can just keep working for you.
When we last spoke, you said you had something to tell me after the battle was over. It was something about my sixteenth birthday. But I do not remember anything after they shelled the cliffside.
Please write back as soon as you can, Major. I will be waiting for you.
Celia Fate
15th of May, 1919
Major Albion Vale Aboll,
I turned sixteen today. Lieutenant Zedé and the other officers made me a cake in the café kitchen, putting candles in it and everything. Then, they got drunk and loudly sang old Parisian songs. It was very lonely without you.
Am I suddenly so unimportant to you that you would miss my birthday? You did not even send me a letter! You did not reply to my last one, so I suppose it was unrealistic to expect a letter from you. To expect anything from you. I lost my arm and you did not visit me once. You did not inquire about my health once. You did not send me flowers or sweets or plush creatures—not even once. It is supposed to be your job to take care of me. You should want to send me things. You are my guardian. Why won’t you reply to me?
Lietenant Zedé told me you would not be coming back for me today. When she said this to me, I did not know what to do or say. My heart stopped. I did not think. However, I still have so many questions. Where are you? What are you doing now? Why won’t you let me go to see you? I think it is as I always feared: I was too much of a burden to you. I was not good enough. I was not a good enough soldier. I cried over childish things. You could not leave me alone, because I was too dependent on you for everything. And after the Battle of Thulenberg, I was missing my arm. I will be more of a burden now. I will not even be able to shoot like before. But I also wrote all your reports for you! I can still write, and I can use a typewriter too. I can run messages. I have more yet I can do for you. Please let me stay by your side.
Please know my failures are not from a lack of effort or will to improve. I tried to be what you wanted me to be. I killed everything at the end of my gun. I was your best shot, and I never stopped learning. I learned to read and write fast as I could, even though you had to teach me. I know I got tired easily. Yet I never complained. Not once. When I am older, I will be stronger and I will be able to fight as long as you need me. Please be patient with me. Please let me go back to serve with you. I know you hate it when I whine. I promise, I am not whining. It just hurts. It hurts because it is as if you despise me for my inexperience and uselessness.
In truth, I am scared. I do not know what I will do without you. When I met you, I thought you would be with me forever. When you pulled me out of the rubble of that orphanage, I thought I had seen the face of God for the first time and he had finally heard my prayers. I wanted to be the very best child solder in the world for you. I thought, if I just served you well enough, I would never be sad again—I had already paid the quotient of my life’s sadness. I thought you would never leave me behind, because you promised. I guess you made me forget grown-ups break their promises. I forgot the world is inherently cruel and there is no God.
Since I am sixteen now, I no longer require a legal guardian. I bought my own apartment and live on my own finances. You are always welcome to visit me, if you change your mind. There is too much space here without you.
Celia Fate
24th of December, 1918
My dear Celia,
As we are about to march after this fair Christmas, it occurs to me the operation in Thulenberg is the riskiest venture we have yet undertaken. As such, and as I have no will written and no wife nor children of my own, I should hope this letter will stand as a legal representation of my will to give you everything. It is my hope, should I die, that all my worldly possessions be entrusted to you. I have many regrets, but I think you are the greatest.
I sat down alone with the intention to write down all the things I could not tell you in life. Yet now, the task seems both daunting and impossible. What do you say to the orphan you dragged out of a pile of rubble and forced into the army? “I regret what I did.” Those words alone are insufficient to express my regret I did not give you the life you deserve. “I loved you.” How very cliché. I did love you. You were honest. You were kind. You wanted to do right by the world, and no one had to give you orders to do that. You gave me the hope for humanity that neither government nor God could give. I gave you a gun and told you to shoot. You should have been in school or in an apprenticeship. You should have been a writer, a singer, a dancer, and, above all else, a Parisian child. I did this to you. I took you to a place where you did not understand anything and forced you to carry dead bodies from trenches. You should have been carrying dolls to tea.
This war has been a horrible exercise in futility and despite all of our hardships, we have gained very little. The only thing of worth was the time I spent with you. But your time was wasted, your precious youth squandered on a Great War beyond your understanding. All you wanted was someone to love you. In the end, I might even fail to give you that.
In the case I cannot tell you in person, heed these words: Do not let this war make you afraid to love others, Celia. I made that mistake. In life, I was never as tender or as wise or as calm or as generous as I should have been with you. But also, never be afraid to be alone. For you are enough on your own. Do not depend on others for more than is necessary and do not be afraid to do something for your own sake. Buy your own house, visit the gardens because you desire it, and eat sweet things for your own sake—not for me. Above all else, learn who you are and be true to yourself. If you do, the world will be a better place and you will be at peace.
Celia, I am sorry. When Thulenberg is ours, the war will be over, and I will take you home. And when spring comes, we can see Thulenberg Palace and all the violets blooming there. Then, the world will be a gentler place and you will be free of sorrow. This is what I wish to promise you. However, I cannot. Instead, I must ask you to think of me fondly, from time to time. I ask you to let the scars of war fade. I ask that the hardness of the trenches wash away. I ask you to be soft. Fall in love, get married, have children, and grow old happily. And know that, no matter what demons you may face, I will be proud of you.
I love you dearly.
Albion
14th of August, 1919
Dearly Beloved,
We are gathered here today to celebrate the life and honor the death of Major Albion Vale Aboll of the 3rd Infantry Division of Anglia. He was born the 25th of May, 1880 in Cleigne. He died in the Battle of Thulenberg when they shelled the cliffside at age 38. He was a good man. He was my guardian and my first friend. He is survived by every other member of the 3rd Division—whom he gave his life to protect—a loving mother, and me.
For those of you who may not know me, my name is Celia Fate. I was the Major’s adopted ward. His mother told me that she wanted me to deliver the eulogy. She said I knew him better, since I had been with him through the Great War. I think Albion would have liked me writing it. But I struggled for a long time with the words. I wrote a lot of different summaries of his life. None of them felt true to him. In the end, I decided to read you all a letter, like the one he wrote to me before the Battle of Thulenberg. I wrote him several letters, both before and after I learned he had died. It felt like they could reach him still somehow, though there are many I never even sent. This one goes as such:
Dearest Major,
The War is over now. But the war is not over for me. Every day, I am reminded of you. Every day, there is a knot in my chest that you are not here to untie. I cannot do it. I only have the one arm now, and it is not sanitary to use one’s teeth to tie bandages.
Somehow, I knew long before they told me. You were dead. Somehow, it was easier to imagine you had grown to loathe me than to contemplate your death. A change in our relationship would have been better than obliteration. So, I told myself it was not so, that you were choosing to abandon me. It was easier to think it was not simply chaos—not the crumbling earth of the battlefield, the shelling of our line, the forces of war—but rather you. It was your fault. But I know it is not true. That I am being silly and childish, of which you would never approve. I do not mean to disrespect your memory.
In a strange way, I hate you for dying. But I hate myself more for not failing to protect you. I should have put myself closer to the edge. I go over the final moments in my head, over and over at night, and pretend there was something to be done. It is easier than being helpless—helpless as the day you first found me in the orphanage rubble.
Albion, (if I may be so informal) I loved you in every way. You were the first person to be kind to me. There were many old men with white beards and ladies with crosses who came to my orphanage with treats and toys. Often, I wondered if it was not God who compelled them to bring us the trappings of love, but a sense of self-importance and self-righteousness. You were a soldier who had nothing to do with Parisia. Yet you pulled me from the rubble. You dressed my wounds and fed me. You taught me to read and write in Anglish. You dealt with superior officers scolding you for keeping a strange, little girl around. You taught that little girl how to fight—to protect the man who had saved her. Perhaps, best of all, you taught me how to love someone back. I doubt I was ever very good at it.
Albion, you say, “I should never have taken you in. I should have sent you somewhere safe.” But I did not want to be somewhere safe. I wanted to be with you. I wanted to do something for the man who had given me everything. There was so much left for us to do and see together. I wanted to go see the violets bloom. I wanted to see Thulenberg Palace with you. I wanted to taste real sugar in my tea. I wanted you to meet the dog in the café, because you have told him his owner was gone. I wanted to go back to Cleigne with you and meet your family. Now, I do these things alone. A constant battle rages in my soul and often, it seems pointless to do anything at all. Yet I know you would not accept hopelessness. So, I fight. It is, perhaps, the only thing I do well.
When I arrived in Parisia today, I felt more alone than ever. The noticeable hole in my life, once filled, was now empty again. I visited the orphanage—which is now just an empty plot of land. Much to my surprise, there were dahlias blooming where the garden stood once, in every color I could imagine. Some people stopped to gather them for their own fallen ones. As I stood there, staring, the rain stopped. In that moment, I thought of you. Perhaps that will be enough for me. It will have to be.
The War may be over but there are many others for which the War continues. The battlefields may lie silent, but the hardness of the trenches will not wash away for a very long time. Our relationship began and ended in the rubble of the war. I will not soon forget it.
Truly yours,
Celia Fate
Dearly Beloved, I wrote this letter for Major Aboll. However, I know there are many of you who feel the same as me—about someone or many someones they lost in this Great War. I should hope this letter can show you that you are not alone in your loss. I think the Major would have liked that. I think, if he were here today, he would tell you not to live your lives according to what was lost. You may miss them, but do not let time stop for you. You must fight to take back your lives. You must not blame the dead for their deeds or misdeeds. You must not hate them, for they are not gone. Their memories and everything they made you remains.
Honor those memories as you would honor those dead men. That is enough.
Thank you.
Yorumlar