[wm] exhaustion
wm 44.6 - "living"
She’s filthy.
Her sun-darkened skin is smudged with soot and dirt. Even her clothes are covered in it, so thickly that the colors of the fabric can barely be recognized. New holes have been haphazardly ripped into the fabric of her jeans. One of the sleeves on her tee-shirt is falling off at the seam. Fresh bruises bloom on her body. Even her long brown hair is a windswept mess, though that’s nothing new. Absently she shoves it from her face as she stares into the sun.
She has never felt so beautiful.
She turns away from the sun to the sound of the footsteps approaching her on the rough gravel ground. Her companion in the rumpled pinstripe suit with the faraway look in his ancient eyes. She knows exactly what he’s thinking because she’s thinking the same thing. The two of them are tired. That kind of tired that comes after being terrified, being exhilerated, flat-out running on a razor’s edge for days on end. It’s a good feeling. Bittersweet.
The guilt in that feeling is nearly overwhelming. Every single time, someone suffers. Nearly every time, somebody dies. And at the end of it all, the two of them walk away. Holding hands.
The Converses crunching against the gravel come to a stop at her side and long cool fingers thread through her own. Her knuckles are still bloodied from beating her way through a boarded-up mine shaft to get the trapped refugees out before the explosives detonated. It hurts to bend her fingers, but she does anyway. None of the little aches in her muscles and joints are anything new to her. She doesn’t let them stop her just like she doesn’t like them show.
Before it was because she needed to be strong. Everyone depended on her. Oz depended on her, and heroes are not weak. Her best friend told her she could be, and that’s okay. But still the pain that throbs through her after an experience like this is not expressed, because it doesn’t need to be. He already knows.
Sometimes she wonders if he can feel it too, when he holds her hand, the way she can feel the planets beneath her feet, the way she can hear the trees crying when they’ve seen something terrible. If he does, he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. She knows he feels the same thing. They ache because they’re old. They have seen so much, and after every time they walk away knowing that they will see more. Tomorrow, or the next day, they will once again confront the wonder and the horror of the universe face to face, and they will not turn away. They do not know how.
Hand in hand they turn to leave, to go back to the box they call home. She will bathe and sleep, and maybe he will too. When she wakes she will have coffee and he will putter around making repairs until finally she joins him and they are once again ready to face their endless quest, to run and fight and learn and live another day, and to bear witness to the birth and death and rebirth of countless people, places and ideas.
They will go on together like this, day after day, and every time, at the end, they will be left standing, staring into the sky, exhausted. Holding hands.
She’s filthy.
Her sun-darkened skin is smudged with soot and dirt. Even her clothes are covered in it, so thickly that the colors of the fabric can barely be recognized. New holes have been haphazardly ripped into the fabric of her jeans. One of the sleeves on her tee-shirt is falling off at the seam. Fresh bruises bloom on her body. Even her long brown hair is a windswept mess, though that’s nothing new. Absently she shoves it from her face as she stares into the sun.
She has never felt so beautiful.
She turns away from the sun to the sound of the footsteps approaching her on the rough gravel ground. Her companion in the rumpled pinstripe suit with the faraway look in his ancient eyes. She knows exactly what he’s thinking because she’s thinking the same thing. The two of them are tired. That kind of tired that comes after being terrified, being exhilerated, flat-out running on a razor’s edge for days on end. It’s a good feeling. Bittersweet.
The guilt in that feeling is nearly overwhelming. Every single time, someone suffers. Nearly every time, somebody dies. And at the end of it all, the two of them walk away. Holding hands.
The Converses crunching against the gravel come to a stop at her side and long cool fingers thread through her own. Her knuckles are still bloodied from beating her way through a boarded-up mine shaft to get the trapped refugees out before the explosives detonated. It hurts to bend her fingers, but she does anyway. None of the little aches in her muscles and joints are anything new to her. She doesn’t let them stop her just like she doesn’t like them show.
Before it was because she needed to be strong. Everyone depended on her. Oz depended on her, and heroes are not weak. Her best friend told her she could be, and that’s okay. But still the pain that throbs through her after an experience like this is not expressed, because it doesn’t need to be. He already knows.
Sometimes she wonders if he can feel it too, when he holds her hand, the way she can feel the planets beneath her feet, the way she can hear the trees crying when they’ve seen something terrible. If he does, he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. She knows he feels the same thing. They ache because they’re old. They have seen so much, and after every time they walk away knowing that they will see more. Tomorrow, or the next day, they will once again confront the wonder and the horror of the universe face to face, and they will not turn away. They do not know how.
Hand in hand they turn to leave, to go back to the box they call home. She will bathe and sleep, and maybe he will too. When she wakes she will have coffee and he will putter around making repairs until finally she joins him and they are once again ready to face their endless quest, to run and fight and learn and live another day, and to bear witness to the birth and death and rebirth of countless people, places and ideas.
They will go on together like this, day after day, and every time, at the end, they will be left standing, staring into the sky, exhausted. Holding hands.