[I]
There are, immediately, the smells of motor oil; mortar; gunsmoke and the sea. Not the warm, fragrant azure waters that surround the island of Tabula Rasa, but those colder, sharper, stormier waters of the North Atlantic. I know where I am just from breathing in the air, although I also know it can’t be possible. Or shouldn't be, at the very least. My hands are gripping the handlebars of what I recognize, from the sound of the engine as well as my memory, to be a DKW NZ350. A ‘43. I know this bike.
God help me, I know exactly where I am.
I’ve had this dream. Correction- I’ve had this nightmare, more nights than I haven’t, since I woke up to a post-war world. This, what’s happening now, this isn’t a nightmare. This is living it. I know. I can tell the difference, by now.
I also know I’m not alone. Even as the end of the runway, the sharp drop off of the cliff looming ahead of us, rushes up to meet us- as the experimental drone plane that ended the war for me pulls away by critical, creeping inches to my left- I’m turning my head to call over my shoulder to the only other person who could be here with me.
“Bucky?!”
God help me, I know exactly where I am.
I’ve had this dream. Correction- I’ve had this nightmare, more nights than I haven’t, since I woke up to a post-war world. This, what’s happening now, this isn’t a nightmare. This is living it. I know. I can tell the difference, by now.
I also know I’m not alone. Even as the end of the runway, the sharp drop off of the cliff looming ahead of us, rushes up to meet us- as the experimental drone plane that ended the war for me pulls away by critical, creeping inches to my left- I’m turning my head to call over my shoulder to the only other person who could be here with me.
“Bucky?!”