Singed By War

A Tale Of Life, Death & The Beyond

*The Following Is A Submission For Iron Age Media’s Literature Prompt ‘The Flame’. The Cover Photo Was Generated In AI By Iron Age Media.*

*Edit Suggestions Provided By TSBOL*

One of a few places you can escape the suffocation of the city is by paying a visit to Arsenal Park. A perfectly squared patch of rolling grass that comes to a sudden end by walls of gray & brown. The wrought iron fence protects trees and a few grassy dunes. I call these mounds home, for they are all that remains of my time. You may be surprised to discover the hills which make the park so tranquil were created by war. I can remember when the land was not partitioned, when it spanned as far as the eye could see. In my schoolgirl days, me and my brother would mingle with our friends. We would see who could keep the wooden hoops on track the longest. Other days we would engage in blind man’s bluff. I believe we were capable of chewing through the hours the simpler the rules. By the sound of the bells, we could be beckoned back to our safe havens.

Me and my brother’s little haven sat on the cusp of the city, the third down in a row of homes weaved together with kindling. Father’s foundry pay blessed us with three floors to shelter from the elements. A dining hall squeezed into the first, my parent’s chambers boxed within the second, and separate quarters for Brother & I packed into the third. From my window I could look down on the little piece of earth that sustained us. A garden of vegetables, a summer kitchen, and Emily in her stall to keep us with enough milk. As I came into womanhood, I spent less time at play and more time in the kitchen. I learned from Mother to knead the dough so she could tend to removing as much filth from the home, lest we came down with a plague.

When Brother was considered mature enough to venture beyond home, he became employed by the mercantile down street. From what he would discuss at dinner, the work was simple in practice but tedious in execution. Every can stocked upon the shelves was another cent we had not experienced before. With Brother out of the house, I stepped up and took hold of more responsibilities around the household. The garden was of top priority to pick & can for the cold months ahead. With two now employed from our home, we managed to afford more durable articles to dress within upon old man winter’s arrival. The fire was still essential to keeping us from falling to frost. There was a struggle Christmas Eve to find some kindling not soiled by melting snow. Enough strikes of the flint & steel resolved that problem. As we sat down for dinner, there was a sense of certainty in our future.

Now that I am recollecting, there were warning signs already sprouting that last holiday together. It seemed overnight a wrought iron fence perfectly squared off the land. A massive brick gateway that appeared to have been carved from some knight’s castle loomed over the street. As brick & wooden structures came to grow behind the gateway, a few men in blue coats arrived to the city. They brandished muskets whose barrels deflected the sunlight, drawing more attention to them. Each soldier’s face was mute, centered on prohibiting anyone passing beneath that looming gateway. Perhaps seeing nothing in their eyes is why I was ambivalent of the massive undertaking happening behind those fences.

Then came the war.

Shortly after the rebels fired on one of our country’s southernmost forts, the city was in an uproar. First outrage, then curiosity, which fueled adventure.  Flags were flown beside all the front doors, pinned within every storefront window, and draped from the length of the second-floor balconies. A desire for adventure coupled with the very real need of putting dinner on the table drove many a man, old and young, to volunteer 90 days of their life to put down the rebellion. My father was one of a few not enthralled with the prospect of military life. He wished to keep to the security of the foundry. But when my brother showed up to the recruiting office one April morning, he couldn’t bear the thought of his only son going into war alone. They became clothed in the same blue wool as the soldiers that came last autumn and marched down main street. Many of our friends and neighbors were brushing shoulders with them as the city delivered its finest to the army.

As they marched to war, black fumes arose from behind that magnificent gateway. We were now made aware of what this monolith on the edge of the streets was. A factory for making munitions for the forthcoming conflict. The slim team of men yet to declare a role in suppressing the rebellion were quick to make their mark for this new venture. Notices soon clung to every post & wall around the city, promising 50 cents a day for anyone with two good hands. Neither I or Mother considered much of it as we anticipated Father and Brother to send us their first month’s earnings. But as the 90 days neared their end, we had yet to see more than crumbs travel by mail. Father’s letters ceased as an early harvest of corn passed by our window. Then the morning paper delivered in bold a punch to our hearts: “PICNIC GONE AWRY: REBELS ROUT OUR BOYS”. The newspapermen sang their sorrows of what had become of our army. Scraps of manifests of the regiments that came from our city was pieced throughout the edition. My brother was listed as being wounded in the arm. But Father was nowhere to found among the lists. He was absent on several successive publications. Only when a letter arrive from Brother did we come to realize father was never coming home.

I was fearful Brother was to lose an arm. He would soon be home but unable to take up day’s occupation in the foundry. My brain was swirling and whisked me to the cusp of the wrought iron. I accepted a small occupation within one of the laboratories of the arsenal, with the promise of walking home each week with 3 dollars. Mother did not have a say in my decision. I received a frequent scolding on how I was neglecting the chores, that I insulted my brother for doubting his wellbeing. But had I not taken hold of the rope then and now, would we have been able to afford another month’s housing fee? It would not be until I was well into the grim in at the arsenal that we received a second letter from the front. Brother’s arm was deposited in the old gardens of one of the capital’s hospitals.

Walking to work was a foreboding adventure. Entering through the towering gate that was complimented with turrets made me feel as if I was walking into castle in some Prince’s fortress. But it was not knights in shining armor which defended the grounds beyond. A small platoon of blue soldiers often was toying with their muskets on an open field for parade. Following a dirt trail around a tranquil little fountain and an imposing stone living quarter, I would start to make out my place of work. On a little rise sat a cluster of wooden laboratories in which I joined several dozen women, some younger than me. We were to sit on opposite sides of long wooden tables and package gunpowder & musket balls into paper cartridges. It was procedure of a few simple steps, easy enough for the many children that became my coworkers to understand. Hours of pinching black grains into the tubes of paper gave me nails of soot. My head ached from an odor of rotten eggs my first day. The pain subsided when my nostrils became numb to the scent. At the end of each shift a rotating number of us would arm ourselves with brooms and sweep the spent powder to through the doors. With the powder removed from our sight, we had a clean slate to resume the work the following morning.

When it rained, mud would cling to all our skirts. Even my petticoat was not spared from being stained. The earth would cling to wagons trying to hurry the latest shipment of cartridges to the front. I wonder how many pleas the commanding officer of the arsenal had to send to the capital to get a proper road installed. But in the first spring since Father’s death, cobblestone replaced the paths we had imprinted across the grounds. Cartridges we rolled together raced out in loads of crates. One could tell how serious the war had become by the speed in which those wagons tumbled out of the arsenal. The horses’ hooves stirred so rapidly I glimpsed sparks coming from their shoes.

Brother returned home that summer. He would take to wearing shirts with long sleeves to mask lacking an arm. He was quickly welcomed back to the mercantile, even if his speed was muted, he could stock the shelves. Both he and my mother attempted to pull me from the arsenal. I did not wish to throw all our collective needs on my brother’s broken shoulders. I kept my place within the line of neighbors, hands to a contraption of war. But war provided for what remained of our family. A new normal had established itself in the daily functions of the city. The newspaper carried a far more erratic story. Our armies thought they had found a way to put down the rebellion. But even at the ramparts of their capital, our army could not win. Now the battles were becoming alarmingly close to us. With each daily edition we followed as the war inched closer to the north.  

In September, the conversations carried out as we labored were of how the city may react to an attack. The soldiers in blue that were quartered at the arsenal could not even face a regiment of the rebels. Most of our men were already enlisted and tailing the rebels. It seemed the only option was to maintain the momentum of munitions. Waggoneers hastily stamped kegs of powder down upon the cobblestone outside our laboratory. Sacks of lead balls, fresh from the foundries, were dumped in cartons for us to grab from. The sweat from my fingers stained the cartridges with strokes like charcoal. I sometimes would have difficulty getting a hold of the twine which needed to be tightly bound at the end of the cartridge. Soon our voices muted as all concentration was put to loading the next crate full.

I picked up on the edge of my ear an unusual sound. The noise I would suspect when the smallest of kindling caught fire in our hearth. A girl at the edge of the table must have heard it to as she was on her feet. Sulfuric smoke rushed through the only door out of the building. Everyone was up on their feet, scrambling to make an escape. I thought I was safe when my eyes were blinded by the bright light of the sun. The light was hotter than the sun had ever felt before. I was swallowed whole by that light. Everything beyond me was for sure absorbed in a similar manner. In one terrific moment, that light ate up much of the arsenal. For the next memories I have are of seeing mounds of earth thrown up in all directions. Splinters protruded from the newly created hillsides. A few metal frames from my peers’ skirts rolled to the base of a foul pit. I do not wish to tell of the situation everyone became scrambled in and amongst that crater.

Much of my outer garments were singed away. Embers clung to the edges of the threads that remained across my shoulders. The limits of my hair had been seared. The powder stuck under my nails had vaporized, scorching dark across my arms. I rose from the crater, appearing to be a human candle. I must have stuck out amongst the smog that now hovered over the ground. But soldiers running from the barracks to the scene of catastrophe hurried straight past me. I was locked in a trance, moving slowly from the grounds of the arsenal into the street. I heard hooves prodding on the road, a fire engine swung around the corner. I weakly waved my hand to gain their aid, but they drove past and through the gateway. My shock was now chilling to fear.

When I staggered through the door of my home, nobody came to hear who was stamping through the dining room. I wanted to call for Mother but couldn’t force a voice. The words kept getting lodged in my throat. The door would soon swing open as Brother came hurrying into the house. He was calling for Mother, his voice filled with the urgency I wished I could have verbalized. She at last came in, huffing out questions as to an explosion. Fearful of what had become of me. Before even reaching out to them, both had dashed down the street. What was the point to chasing them? My heart had ceased pounding. The burns on my body left no pain. I was transparent in the eyes of this world.

For the longest time, I was too frightened to leave from my room. There were a few days of near silence. But when voices unfamiliar to me began murmuring one afternoon, I ventured back into the dining room. Several individuals were crammed in the room. The most bountiful amount of food our home had ever seen was displayed across our table. Everyone was shrouded in black clothes, heads hung low. Brother made his rounds, conferring a collective thanks for the neighborhood’s condolences. My mother was confined to a chair in a corner of the room, rubbing her cheeks red with a handkerchief. I counted my blessings I saw no remains of mine displayed, perhaps nothing was left by the flames.

My grasp on time slipped. Silence had become an unspoken rule between Mother and Brother. What I had to work with were theories about what was becoming of the war. Though the arsenal was in ashes, it appeared that rebel attack never reached out doorstep. Brother would periodically bring up the progress of our armies, but Mother would have none of it. She had lost two of the family to this pestilence called war; one claimed by an enemy bullet, another to creating the bullets he fired. Brother could not argue against those bastions. He began to seek companionship and one day brought a girl with brunette locks home to visit. I presume they became wedlocked for she was in the house more than he was. But when she began to show signs of having a child on the way, all the articles in the house began to be packed away. All the furnishings in my room were dismantled by a hired man and carried away. My mother carefully packed the last of my possessions. Brother was the last one to leave the barren house, a home to them no more. I followed them through the door and down the block. At the very least I could watch my brother’s family blossom in their new home. But reaching the long toll bridge reaching tethering the city’s center to the South Side, I found it impossible to walk onto the deck. My feet clung to the dirt beneath. In panic I ran after their wagon. But soon I dropped through the bottom of the bridge like a raindrop. The river’s bank was all the further I could follow my brother’s journey through life.  

Returning into the city, I thought I could merely haunt the barren structure in solitude. It was the most I had known in this world. I was lost and wished to hold to the last strand of normality that could be found. Never was it a consideration in my mind new tenants would move into my home. A large family speaking in a tongue my ears had never heard squeezed their life onto the three floors. It was impressive to see eight young ones be lodged between the room I once occupied and the floor of their parents’ chambers. The father was foreign in language & dress. But when lathered in the stains of the foundry, he had the spirit of my Father. The family pulled together like mine did before. But it seemed to be a recycle of the past. Death came to the family’s doorstep with an ailment that spread through the house like wildfire. The two youngest children were not strong enough to survive. The household mourned those terrible days but found some solace in being able to put their darlings to one final rest.

Silence reigned upon my old home once more. The foreign family had moved on to greener pastures. The silence ate away at me, but I did not dare venture outside. What would the outside appear as? Maybe the war had swung in the favor of the rebellion. I was too timorous to investigate. But staying in the dark was no longer at my disposal. A piece of the roof was pried away with no warning. The planks were pried away, one at a time. The sun breached into my room at once. Beams of dust & light shot through the wall. There were men with hammers other utensils prying apart my home board by board. There was nothing that could be done to get them to see me. I made it to the bottom floor before the last beam was heaved away. But to go beyond the door, where would I go?

The crew working to dismantle my home forced me to face the world. I could see between the planks that other houses were meeting a similar fate. A monolith of rock had become several residences, concealing the block where my neighbors once were.  The streets had turned dry and coarse with a pallet of black. Coaches with metal poles tethering them to telegraph cable traveled both ways, confined by iron rails in the middle of the roadway. The boardwalk that kept my feet out of the mud was not solid rock, with scores of people shuffling in all directions. Frightened, I rushed to the one place that I may yet recognize.

The wrought iron fence which encased the arsenal remained. The magnificent gateway had disappeared since the last day my heart had a beat. Many of the impressive structures no longer remained. Perhaps destroyed in the blast but more likely removed by time. A long building sided with metal sheeting had been erected on grassy dunes in the back of the property. I was lucky to find the gothic barracks the blue soldiers once called home remained. Thought I had never passed through the building during my days of employment, its silhouette brought me the smallest ounce of comfort. I took the tour of both levels when things were most busy. Nobody was spending their nights here anymore for the rooms appeared more as offices than they did sleeping quarters. They had perfect lighting shrouded in foggy glass to work in.  These men were dressed not in blue, but dark green & tan. I would have thought the rebels had taken the city for not the fact our country’s flag was emblazoned on every man’s shoulder.  They spoke not of crushing a rebellion but fighting overseas, in trenches carved in the ground. I caught glimpses of what I suppose to be their cartridges, now metal tubing instead of paper rolls. No horses were needed to pull them away, the crates being stacked in a metal wagon with black wheels.

Even though they saw through my charred self, I still desired some privacy. I took to the second floor where fewer offices existed. I could watch over the grounds and watch time burn away. The faces of the soldiers became new, their clothes changing ever so often. The flag that flew from a massive pole where the fountain once was kept gaining a star. I was most perplexed to find a woman my age in one of the offices in a uniform like the soldiers.

They were producing more munitions than I believe we even did. But one day I was puzzled to find hardly a person the grounds. I’d understand if it were a Sunday, but I heard no church bells in the distance. A few individuals came in overalls to remove key furniture from the office space. What was not of value was left behind. Boards went up over each window, blocking out light from the sun. The Old Barracks were doomed to progress, like my previous home had been. But rather than a slow deconstruction, a massive ball of iron took a quarter of the structure in one swift swing. In a days work, that proud building was reduced to a pile of stone and mortar. I considered taking shelter one of the storehouses where the kegs of powder came from. Those two were being obliterated. The only thing I could find familiarity in were the dunes formed from the explosion. The years had eroded them to little humps, but those who knew where to look could spot them with ease.

From here I have watched the arsenal be eaten up by the city. That sprawling complex was enveloped by monoliths of smooth stone & glass. The buildings that ascended have reached beyond my imagination. They cast shadows down upon me and the little plot of ground left undistributed. The vast fields which I played in as a child are gone. Smog followed the latest wagons, now with their driver sealed inside. The clamor around my block is most irritable. But I have seen families escape the suffocation of the city by coming to the one square of grass left untouched. The noise surrounds them, but they find solace within the wrought iron fence. The kids of today’s city keep blind man’s bluff as staple of Arsenal Park. Sometimes they play from sunrise to sunset. Every so often, one will freeze when looking at the earthen hills. Perhaps they are seeing my cinders simmering through time.