Brothers in Arms

Posted on Sat Oct 19th, 2024 @ 18:40 by Alastair Temple
Edited on on Sat Oct 19th, 2024 @ 18:45

Chapter: Besieged
Location: The brigde outside Avalon
Timeline: Evening, Wednesday, February 3rd, 1993
658 words - 1.3 OF Standard Post Measure

He was angry. Not the roaring, loud kind of anger, but that quietly, deep, seething kind. The one you didn't notice on his features, in his voice. But one he felt deeply. He wanted - needed to vent that anger. To give it a voice. To address the people he was angry at - or, at least, their proxies, because the actual people in charge couldn't be arsed to get their hands dirty themselves. He felt he needed to put words to his anger.

And he only knew one way how.

As such, the institute's music teacher made his way out of the castle, through the gate, walking up on the bridge. He carried a simple folding chair - like the kind movie directors used - and an acoustic guitar, as long strides carried him closer towards the blockade. He was careful to stay on the castle's side of the bridge though, private property rather than public road. He was careful to set up where he knew they couldn't legally touch him or interfere with him.

The chair set down, he took his guitar down from his back and took a seat. A strum or two, finding the feel for the instrument - made more challenging by the cold that was slowly creeping into his fingers. Fortunately, it wasn't a complicated song that he was going to play. In fact, it was a beautiful piece. He had rearranged the words ever so slightly though, to make sure the people in the outpost understood the meaning.

"These mist covered mountains," his rich, warm baritone rang out, accompanied by the melodic sounds of the six-string 1960s vintage Kay acoustic. A beautiful instrument, rich and warm in tone and presentation, much like the voice that sounded alongside it now. "are a home now for me," he continued. "But my home is the low lands, and always will be. Some day you'll return to your valleys and your farms, and you'll no longer burn to be brothers in arms."

It was a protest song, written during the Falklands conflict, against the senselessness of combat. Of war. But here it adopted a new meaning, one of brotherhood against animosity. "Through these fields of oppression, baptisms of fire, I've witnessed their suffering, as the hatred raged high. And though you did hurt me so bad in the fear and alarm, they did not desert me my brothers in arms."

The music teacher's voice was warm and soft, the words sung without hatred, though he did look the guards directly into the eyes, as well as a nurse that came to hear what was happening, as he sang the lyrics. "There's so many different worlds, so many different suns, and we have just one world, but we live in different ones," It was true. Although each person was a world upon themselves, with their own beliefs and their own truths, they still shared just one earth.

"Now the sun's gone to hell," He had timed this to coincide with the sun setting and darkness falling across the bridge, across the institute. Now behind him, at the gate, a small crowd had gathered too. Some students, some faculty, to watch what was happening. "The moon's riding high. Let me bid you farewell, every man has to die. But it's written in the starlight, and every line in your palm, we're fools to make war on our brothers in arms... "

He let those words linger, hanging in the air, as he trailed off his singing and his playing. Still gaze focused on the guards and others at the blockade, who'd come out to watch and listen, as he rose to his feet again, slung his vintage Kay over his shoulder again, once more gathered up his folding chair and headed back towards the gate, leaving the bridge in silence once more.