Miss Placed Affection

Desperate Times Prose: Volume I


When the dust settles on the field of battle, I am left alone. How long has it been since I've seen my love, weeks? Months? Years. I wouldn't have been able to get through the horror without the thought of her waiting for my return. I can see her sitting up by the window in the old rocking chair, knitting me a sweater, pausing every now and then to choke back her tears. This is what I imagine.
In all actuality, my love has probably forgotten me.

Would I were her, I would never give up hope. But hope is in short supply these days. I fear that my love; through with waiting, dissatisfied with my shortcomings as a man, has picked up and left for the coast.

With broken legs and heart I drag myself up the blood-soaked hill, searching for survivors. I am the last man left alive.

A wagon! A horse! I am saved. With great difficulty, I climb up to the driver's seat and strap myself in. My chest heaves, my head sweats, my legs bleed and swell with possible infection. My head feels heavy, my sight grows hazy and my heart; beats; agonizingly.

I can only think of her.

It grows dark, I must nearly be home...

Through hill and valley we travel, through cold winds and torrential downpour, never stopping. After an eternity, we pull up to my farm. My home. My castle. My love.

Legs torn to hell, I pant like a dog as I pull myself to the front door. Memories of my love race through my head, giving me the strength to go on. All I want is to hold her in my arms once more before I die. I call out her name - I hear a commotion. I drag myself upstairs to our room as fast as I can. Finally, I get to the door. I know she is waiting there, as she has always been waiting, full of love, for me. I open the door and there is my love, naked, in the arms of another man, some bastard Confederate soldier. In the arms of the enemy.


My love wears the ravager's gray cap. She screams with ecstasy. I stare in disbelief. Could her love for me have faded away? That quickly, that easily? What could I have done to keep her favor? I suppress my anger and feel a deep sense of misery in my chest. A lump in my lung migrates downward towards my heart. The lump becomes God and as He plunges his mighty hand in to my chest, He rips out my heart before my very eyes. He tears it in two and pauses. I plead, I beg, that I may get the full half, the half with some sense of meaning. God stares for a moment, then returns half a heart to me, empty, lonely, meaningless... Loveless. I can not live with half a heart - half an empty heart at that. I draw my sidearm and put the cold barrel of the gun to my temple. Even after I squeeze the trigger, they go on fucking; ignoring the dead man in the doorway.

I'm left in limbo.