Final.
It’s a cold Spring day in 1945. I’m about 4,000 miles from my home, riding a stolen motorcycle toward the edge of a cliff, a concrete jetty built out of the stone of an old castle. Directly in front of me is an experimental drone plane, lifting off the runway, winging its way toward turning this war in favor of the Nazis. Directly behind me is my best friend, my brother, and that’s the only reason I think I can do this.
It doesn’t help that I know I can’t, but it doesn’t change anything, either.
People said, after the war, that it had made our country. That World War II was the moment that decided who we were as a generation and shaped the rest of the century.
This is the moment that made us who we are. It’s truer for no one more so than Bucky and me.
“Bucky,” I say. Not the exclamation of all the times before, not the question. We’re about to go over. He’s about to make the fatal leap.
Fateful leap. Either way.
It doesn’t help that I know I can’t, but it doesn’t change anything, either.
People said, after the war, that it had made our country. That World War II was the moment that decided who we were as a generation and shaped the rest of the century.
This is the moment that made us who we are. It’s truer for no one more so than Bucky and me.
“Bucky,” I say. Not the exclamation of all the times before, not the question. We’re about to go over. He’s about to make the fatal leap.
Fateful leap. Either way.