CREATIVE WRITING
Photography by Luke Butland (Year 10)
F I C T I O N One good day Seymour Hine (Year 9)
A vicious wind lashed the snow-covered shrubs struggling to survive the harsh winter. It lashed the barren field, as if sweeping away the dead, it weathered surviving plants, and it lashed my cheeks as I shivered in the damp dawn. The trenches marked by crevasses in the land were separated by the bland, white field of no-man’s-land. As the sun reluctantly rose, a few rays sent forth their light, announcing the start of a new day. The night’s dark cloak that had smothered the valley was lifted. Another day: another chance to kill and be killed. After a breakfast of canned rations, the shooting began. When I first arrived, I was shocked at how indifferent men were if a soldier was killed in the trenches, but now I understand, and I myself act in the same heartless way. The monotony of my life and the continuous murder that I must commit to survive makes me value little but the friendship of my comrades. It was Christmas Eve, and my original hopes for an end to this war by Christmas had been shattered. After a near miss with a bullet, I retired to my corner of the trench to rest, waiting for the horrors of the day to finally pass. As the sky dimmed and the shots become fewer, I drifted off into a light sleep that was plagued by the deaths of the young men that fell all around me on both sides of the
divide. I woke up with a hope, a hope to have one good day, one peaceful day; Christmas could be that day. When I didn’t hear the gunshots that I had become so used to, my hopes rose. A unanimous consensus for peace seemed to have spread throughout the warzone, and a brave soul came out unarmed, hands held above his head. Soon others followed, and an unbelievable sense of joy rushed through my body. So great was this joy from the unofficial peace that my emotions seemed almost comical and I started to cry uncontrollably. It seemed like hundreds of men leaped out into the day with renewed energy. That which had divided us was forgotten, and our orders were set aside. A game of football even broke out, but at the back of our minds, we all knew that we would have to stop, sometime, for a war is a war and it must be fought by someone. For once, I hated the shortness of the day and wished that it would never end. But as all days do, it came to its conclusion and the field was once again cast into a shadow of uncertainty, fear and regret. Our moods turned sombre. Each went his separate way, knowing that he would be soon shooting at the friends he had made. A sense of gloom settled upon us and it felt like the winter would never end.
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