Turning

No one would answer her.

She just came back from the country. She was looking for her Garen, asking where he had gone, and no one would answer her.

She was confused. Everyone in this little section of Paris knew Garen and his friends, always dreaming of a better world and drinking wine as if it were as abundant as water. Everyone loved their little group of dreamers.

So why would no one answer her?

She stopped her friend on the street. "Where is Garen?" she asked, "Have you seen him?"

Immediately, her friend burst into tears and walked away.

She was getting worried. The inn, she realized. The inn is where they were. So she started toward it, passing groups of gossiping women as she went.

Did you see them going off to fight?

The question was asked by a woman with red eyes and tear-streaked cheeks, addressing another who looked just as troubled.

"Who went?" She asked, "Who went to fight?"

"Oh child," came the reply, "If only you knew."

Farther down the street, she passed another pair of women, equally as mournful as the first.

Children of the barricade who didn't last the night.

Her pace quickened. The word barricade struck a chord in her, a word that she recognized from the students' plans, plans that Garen had recited to her every night with broad grins and excited eyes. She had played along with her lover, encouraging his dreams, but dismissed them as fantasies, things that would never happen.

Did you see them lying where they died? Someone used to cradle them and kiss them when they cried.

Did you see them lying side by side?

She was jogging now, strongly denying the words that reached her ears. They were just stories. Fake. Made up. Untrue.

They were schoolboys, never held a gun. Fighting for a new world that would rise up like the sun.

She started running, trying to block out the women's voices. It couldn't be. It just couldn't.

It was.

The scene before her made her stop dead in her tracks. Wreckage was everywhere, bit of broken barricade that didn't hold up. Didn't save the soldiers that trusted it.

Blood. There was blood. She could see it, even though there had been obvious attempts to clean it.

Her feet carried her to her destination, slowly, as if she were in a dream. Maybe she was.

She crossed the threshold, and found her Garen. He lay between his comrades, as if he were sleeping. But the blood on his uniform told another story. A horrible, much more gruesome story.

She was vaguely aware of someone yelling at her, telling her to leave the inn. It was no place for someone like her. Dainty. Fragile.

Alive.

The blood had spread out from his chest, a bullet to his heart taking him. Perhaps it was quick. Perhaps it was painless. But was it worth it? All of his brother dead, and for what?

Where's that new world, now the fighting's done?

Someone was behind her, watching as she fell to her knees and leaned over her lover. They watched as she took his cold hand in her warm one, and saw the tears fall on the man's coat. They had told her to leave, but it was too late. It was too late for a lot of things.

"Leave me." she told the stranger, and reluctantly, they did. They left her alone to mourn her loss, a loss that was like the losses of many other women and children.

She would heal, of course, but the stitches that mend broken hearts are always imperfect, and there would be times where a seam would tear. She would remember her loved one, break again, and repair herself with the same poor mending job as before. This cycle would continue on and on, happen to everyone that grieved, throughout the turning, turning, turning of the years.