davejadecollab (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
davejadecollab) wrote2012-08-05 12:15 am
davejadecollab) wrote2012-08-05 12:15 am
Crossing
It's a killer cold outside Trenton the morning after Christmas night, and you kneel in the snow beside your brother's body as it empties of life and warmth and blood. It spreads in tiny red feathers beneath him, the same red as the stolen coat you've wrapped around your shoulders to try to stave off the chill.
You're no Loyalists by any stretch of the imagination, not when England's so far away and starvation so near, but you didn't sign up with any militia, either. You're colonists, but the new land, for all its richness, has not been kind to you, and instead you and your brother have picked after the Hessians, taking food, blankets, clothing. Your brother packed rags into your pilfered shoes to make them fit. The coat you took yourself off a dead man near Newport.
The Hessians were drunk, and you had been lazy, and none of you expected the attack across the Delaware that night, the muskets and bayonets and shouting of orders that no longer sounded like English, the screams that were no longer language.
Your brother is dead.
A crunch of snow behind you makes you jump, stagger onto hollowed legs. Someone is there.
The figure raises both hands and though you're not assured in the least, you do nothing. One step, two, and you can see them better in the weak grey light—a youth perhaps your age, long-limbed, almost as scrawny as you. Dark-skinned. A slave? A runaway? Both sides have been making use of them, making use of everything they can get their hands on.
You say, stop, boy.
He stops, then flashes you the widest, whitest, warmest grin you have ever seen on another human's face. You notice that his eyes are light in his face—green. It's all completely surreal. Your brother is dead.
I'm not a boy, says the boy.
Oh, you say.
I like your hair ribbon, says the boy who isn't a boy.
The boy who isn't a boy—that would make him a girl, wouldn't it?—is close to you now, and you don't really remember her approach but you're too frozen up inside to be scared. You look at your brother, look at the girl, and then take the ribbon out of your hair. It's colored like a girl's doll's sash, because that's what it was. Your brother thought it was funny, and you used it to show that you didn't care what he thought and also to keep him smiling even on the nights you couldn't nick a crust of bread.
You hand it to the girl, though you mumble something about it being useless for her short hair.
She laughs and winds it through her fingers, and the play of green against her dark skin is a welcome distraction from the corpse behind you.
You put your hands in the pockets of your coat to warm them.
You're not a redcoat, are you, she asks, and you shake your head. Come along then, she says, and starts to reach for your hand.
But then she seems something behind you and her eyes widen. She starts to move, to pull you out of the way, to push in front of you, and she's shouting something. Becquerel, no!
But your body shakes with impact and you fall, and only then do you feel the pain and hear the musket's report.
<== Back | Forward ==>
You're no Loyalists by any stretch of the imagination, not when England's so far away and starvation so near, but you didn't sign up with any militia, either. You're colonists, but the new land, for all its richness, has not been kind to you, and instead you and your brother have picked after the Hessians, taking food, blankets, clothing. Your brother packed rags into your pilfered shoes to make them fit. The coat you took yourself off a dead man near Newport.
The Hessians were drunk, and you had been lazy, and none of you expected the attack across the Delaware that night, the muskets and bayonets and shouting of orders that no longer sounded like English, the screams that were no longer language.
Your brother is dead.
A crunch of snow behind you makes you jump, stagger onto hollowed legs. Someone is there.
The figure raises both hands and though you're not assured in the least, you do nothing. One step, two, and you can see them better in the weak grey light—a youth perhaps your age, long-limbed, almost as scrawny as you. Dark-skinned. A slave? A runaway? Both sides have been making use of them, making use of everything they can get their hands on.
You say, stop, boy.
He stops, then flashes you the widest, whitest, warmest grin you have ever seen on another human's face. You notice that his eyes are light in his face—green. It's all completely surreal. Your brother is dead.
I'm not a boy, says the boy.
Oh, you say.
I like your hair ribbon, says the boy who isn't a boy.
The boy who isn't a boy—that would make him a girl, wouldn't it?—is close to you now, and you don't really remember her approach but you're too frozen up inside to be scared. You look at your brother, look at the girl, and then take the ribbon out of your hair. It's colored like a girl's doll's sash, because that's what it was. Your brother thought it was funny, and you used it to show that you didn't care what he thought and also to keep him smiling even on the nights you couldn't nick a crust of bread.
You hand it to the girl, though you mumble something about it being useless for her short hair.
She laughs and winds it through her fingers, and the play of green against her dark skin is a welcome distraction from the corpse behind you.
You put your hands in the pockets of your coat to warm them.
You're not a redcoat, are you, she asks, and you shake your head. Come along then, she says, and starts to reach for your hand.
But then she seems something behind you and her eyes widen. She starts to move, to pull you out of the way, to push in front of you, and she's shouting something. Becquerel, no!
But your body shakes with impact and you fall, and only then do you feel the pain and hear the musket's report.