A Shard of the Sky

"Auf Wiedersehen."

"Au revoir."

The eyes were still open: blue and clear, like the sky should have been. But now they were a photographed sky, bleached with age, like a memento I would carry in my pocket. A picture creased in careful folds, stored then removed then stored again. A pale shard of memory against a muddy frame. He was covered with so much mud. It was on his hair and clothes and every inch of exposed skin, turning everything to a uniform brown. A more uniform look than the actual uniforms we were given.

For some reason I found that funny. "Look at us," I whispered. "We're wearing the same uniform."

I didn't expect him to respond, and even if he could have, he wouldn't have understood my words. Not the meaning, not exactly. It was probably a good thing he couldn't hear me laughing. It likely would only have upset him. He would have looked at me and murmured something in his harsh tongue.

"Warum lachen Sie?"

An innocent query turned unintentionally threatening by linguistics.

And there would have been such a questioning hurt in his big, blue eyes. It was a look that would give any man pause.

Was I wrong to have faltered, when I found him down here with me? In this pit? This pit, with the water poisoned by gas and blood and rotting corpses? Where we were bound to die anyway, so what need was there to get unnecessary blood on my hands?

There was already so much blood on my hands.

His faded eyes were still staring at the sky. He didn't get the joke. The joke was that, covered in scum as we were, you couldn't see our differences. Nationalities fell apart. Race fell apart. Colours turned to muck, and the only differences were our tongues and our eyes. There really wasn't much too it.

But there were still gunshots over head.

My hands were covered in the sludge of the pit. Blood, mud, poison and sewage. No part of me was clean, nothing I could use to wipe the filth off my hands. I didn't want to dirty his eyes. His eyes seemed to be the only clean thing left in this world. Those blue skies, clouded by death. When I'd first rolled into this pit, tipped off balance by a grenade, I'd thought I was alone. The world was brown, and I was brown, and then I'd caught the glint of blue staring. Like a piece of the forgotten sky.

Mesmerized, I'd moved closer. My instincts could no longer warn me of danger because every fiber of my being was calling out to that blue. The bright, clear, summer blue. All I'd seen, for weeks and weeks, was grey and red and brown. I'd missed the sun. I'd missed the clean wind after a rainstorm, the scent of grass unmarred by blood and smoke.

I was almost nose to nose with him before he spoke.

"Hallo."

His voice was a hoarse croak. It startled both of us. I had jerked back, slipping on the boggy ground. His hand found mine, and with surprising strength he had heaved me away from the cesspool at my back.

"Merci."

He'd simply nodded. We eyed each other. He was taller than I was, broader, with a growing red stain on his side. Shrapnel wound.

His eyes were sharp with intelligence and pain.

"Let me see." I reached for his side, for the arm clutching it. Protecting it. Holding his insides back. "Let me see."

He swatted my arm away.

"I want to help," I told him. I reached for him again.

He grimaced and turned away, eyes shut tight. A curtain drawn before the shards of sky.

"Please," I begged. I wasn't sure why I was so desperate. I should have left him, tried to find my way out of that pit, taking his gun and supplies with me for good measure. But I didn't. I couldn't. I couldn't leave that blue.

I struggled, ravaging my mind for the scraps of language I had picked up. What did they call, at night, as they bled to death on the battlefield? As they waited, hoping, for their friends to save them or a bullet to the skull?

"Bitte." Please.

He shook his head.

"Bitte," I urged again. "Bitte. Bitte."

"Nein."

My heart sunk. "Look at me!" I cried, frantic and pleading. "Look at me, please! You can't give up! I'm trying to help you!"

To him it must have been a curtain of sound. Perhaps he thought I was going to kill him. He hunched into himself, closing me off, but I wouldn't let it go.

Gently, oh so gently, I touched a hand to his face. Dirty, we were both so dirty. I almost expected my hand to pass through him: he seemed to be creature made of mud, unresisting. I gasped slightly when my fingertips met his skin. He looked at me then. There must have been something in my gaze that satisfied him, because he turned himself toward me with a grunt.

"Nien," he stated, pressing his arm protectively to his side. I nodded. His eyes drifted down then, down my face, down the wreckage of my uniform, down to where my canteen rested at my side. He licked his lips.

"Wasser."

I helped him drink. I uncorked the canteen, lifting it to his parched and cracking lips. The water dribbled down his front, and he brought his own hand up to steady mine. Contact.

"Dankeschoen."

Blue eyes. Deep as the ocean on a fresh spring day. Deep enough to dive into.

He kept his hand on mine even as I put the canteen away.

Hand to hand. Eyes to eyes.

I gave his hand a squeeze. He coughed, then squeezed back.

Heart to heart.

We stayed like that for a while, watching the colours fly overhead. Reds and oranges and yellows painted against the grey sky.

His coughing became more frequent. It speckled his lips with blood. I offered more water to wash the blood away, even though I knew there was nothing I could really do for him. He wouldn't take it. He knew this was the end too.

He shifted his grip so that our fingers intertwined. Slowly, holding my gaze, he brought our conjoined hands to his heart.

I leaned forward, falling towards those watery depths.

He smiled.

"Auf Wiedersehen."

His hand went limp then. Blue eyes bleached grey.

"Au revoir."

Carefully, gently, shaking, I closed his eyes.

"Au revoir."

Just like that, my piece of sky, gone.