Indeed, a rose was growing in No-Man's Land.

The men argued over how it got there, with no sky for its blossom or water for its root. They fought bitterly over who would eventually pluck it from its stem and carry it to a girl in the town to sit at a cafe and watch her eat too fast, then give it to her with too much ceremony, and hope that it might bring a smile before she acquiesced to the inevitable. That this rose which never bowed before steel and men and black powder might soften her heart, and that she might yield willingly for once.

The women in this country were nothing like the ones the men left at home.

Through the snowman's navel, a fine Calligraphic World was glimpsed.

Oh sorry, I thought this was a continuation story thing, and was going with the whole "rose in no-man's land" thing, not the bottle under snow. Ignore me; carry on.

Hey, man, there's no room for thread-o-facsism here man, just do what you feel.... man.

I thought Hugh's good story was about the bottle under the snow.

Some men are hard to notice. They aren't short or tall, or handsome or ugly, or sallow or ruddy or excessively hairy or blessed with some fine feature (or cursed with some dreadful blemish), or possessed of some habit that makes them stand out; if they smoke, they don't chainsmoke, if they drink they don't get drunk, if they chase skirts they aren't brazen, and if they don't they aren't proud of the fact. Raschke was such a man.

It could be said that the other men in the company had little use for Raschke, but then it could also be said that he got along alright. When, after furloughing in the town, it came time for the men to regroup and head to the front, he would arrive late, but there would always be several men later than him.

He would sit and smoke and talk to the other men, but nobody remembered much beyond his name, which they read from the bottom of his mess tin late in the afternoon of the day Raschke disappeared.

Lidia didn't know her last name; she was eleven months old when the first shots were fired and her father was called to the front and killed a day later. Her mother had fallen apart and the neighbors tried to care for them both, but the mother grew increasingly distant until one day the sky opened up and a rain of incendiary shells destroyed the quarter of the town where they had lived, killing her mother and the neighbors and destroying their homes and the hospital and the orphanage until there was no record left of this wailing little girl beyond her undeniable presence in the arms of a sergeant in the army engineers who had lifted her to safety from the shattered cellar of her neighbor's home.

She grew up with soldiers. She reminded them of their families so they gave her things: food, candies, little things they had fashioned from debris while sitting in holes in the ground waiting interminable hours and longer days for the bombardment to occur or for the orders to charge or to march away would come. One man even gave her a gold tooth he had pulled from the mouth of a dead enemy, joking that it was her dowry, and not joking that he would cut the throat of any man who thought to steal it from her.

As the war continued, men came and went, and twice the town was occupied by men whose uniforms were a yellower green than her father's had been, and who spoke a language made of shouts and rattled teeth. An eight-year old girl gets along, though, and some of these men with their black teeth and lead-grey eyes gave her the same chocolate and tinned beef and dolls made of sticks and shell casings and cotton wadding that the soldiers from her country had, and she thought they weren't much different after all.

I know it's your first day here and I can tell by your swagger and the way you wear your hat that you think you know it all... No, No hear me out ok? Just let me get through this... Thanks.

So yeah you say, c'mon I've worked in cold conditions before... North Sea oil rigs, Alaska, hell, fucking Siberia.

It's colder here, you die faster here, your fucking eyeballs freeze here!

So why did I make you suit up and walk out here after a horrible bumpy loud six hours on a plane with some clearly stoned Kiwi pilots?

Yeah, you've seen it all.

Look down, asshole, what do you see there?

Right a fucking whiskey bottle. A man named Jersey Pete IS HOLDING THAT WHISKEY BOTTLE FUCKFACE! Holding it up the sky. He's dead, frozen solid in a fucking snow drift that won't ever thaw out as long as I keep hosing it down once every season. Guess what he's wearing in his icy tomb?

No guesses? A fucking Sponge Bob Speedo, guy. Wanna know the worst part? The bottle's only half empty.

In case this is all not immediately clear, there is one rule here:


NO FUCKING DRUNKEN HORSEPLAY OUTSIDE WITHOUT A PARTER. NO EXCEPTIONS. IT'S THE BUDDY SYSTEM OR NOTHING NEW GUY!

Ok let's go back in, it's taco night and I'm freezing my balls off.

"PARTNER", THANKS SPELLCHECK, I HOPE YOU FREEZE TO DEATH ALL ALONE, YOU HANDJOB.

It's Gone. The Wiser!

The company received its second furlough of the year in late November, and though it had turned cold by mid-September, warm weather from far to the south left the men's tunics folded over the backs of chairs and tossed on the floor to rest in the light from wide-open windows. Some of the men smelled peace on the air, drifting in from the past. These men said nothing but found themselves strangely emotional, frustrated at their daily routines and even crying in the arms of the whores.

On the third day of their furlough, a jeep entered the town from the east, circled the town plaza twice, and sped away. It was Lidia's tenth birthday, though she didn't know it, and Raschke had yet to desert his company.

He was sitting in the cafe on the plaza at a table with two other soldiers who were occupied playing cards for souvenirs scavenged from the enemy dead. His eyes were closed and he was smiling, willing himself to relax completely against the headache he had felt ever since he got out of bed.

He could smell fields; as Raschke drifted in and out he would mumble the name of a plant or a bird or a friend he remembered from before the war began, and his smile would grow broader or his brow would crease as he thought.

Raschke could barely remember his old life. There wasn't much to it. Shipping clerks were shipping clerks the world over. He gained no comfort from his work and had a dull unmarried personal life, enjoying frequent solitary fishing trips more than social calls and trips to the tavern.

The war made little difference to him, aside from a new occupation and the proximity of death, and he took comfort in the regulated days and the orderly habits of life in the army. Being at the front was exhausting, but Raschke slept tolerably despite the constant noise and had few complaints.

So when he tilted his head forward and opened his eyes to see a dirty ten-year old girl staring intently back at him, he was surprised to feel an overwhelming need to leave the army, to stop fighting and get himself out of the war.

The taxi driver let Marianne off at the curb. It took some time but eventually she persuaded the driver she’d be okay and he left. She could see the driver shaking his head as he drove away. With a small smile she turned and faced the cemetery.

As far as Marianne could tell she was alone. All she saw were a few crows fluttering about from tree to headstone. Something fluttered in the tree next to her and she turned to see what it was. A little sparrow was perched on an even smaller branch watching her. They stared at each other for a few moments before the sparrow fluffed his feathers and flew away. The crows called to each other and the wind moaned softly as it traveled through the tall pine trees. No other sound could be heard in this quiet place.

Marianne took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and set across the snow towards the centre of the cemetery. Pete’s headstone was about a quarter mile from the entrance and she was thankful there wasn’t much snow. Marianne stumbled once, rose and brushed the snow off her new red wool coat with her black gloves. She made sure that the contents of the paper bag she was carrying were intact and walked on.

Ah, there it was, Pete’s headstone. Trembling, she reached out and brushed the snow off the headstone with a gloved hand. Crouching down she removed the bottle of Wiser’s from the brown paper bag. Marianne carefully placed the bottle against the base of the headstone. She reached again into the bag and pulled something small from it. As she stood she folded the empty bag and placed it in her pocket. Her right hand clenched around the other item and Marianne brought her hand to her heart.

Marianne took a step back from the headstone, eyeing the composition. With a sigh she abruptly sat down in the snow, still facing Pete’s headstone. “Why, Pete, why?” came softly from her lips. “Why did you leave me? And in this place of all places.” There was no one to hear her quiet questions except the lone sparrow.

The sparrow twittered at Marianne from a tree a few feet away. She didn’t hear it through her tears. Using her left hand to wipe her face, Marianne reached out and placed the item in her right hand on the top of the headstone. It was a small pewter plane.

As it began to snow Marianne settled down onto the ground. She curved her body around the bottle of Wiser’s as if to protect it. The sparrow flew down to Pete’s headstone and pecked at the plane. Finding it wasn’t food, the sparrow turned to Marianne. It didn’t take long until the sparrow couldn’t see her; the snow gently covered every bit of Marianne’s new red coat. The sparrow fluffed his feathers once again and went to find sustenance elsewhere.

nice.