“The Volunteer”

Their limbs were healthy, in the glowing sun.

They crowded on the beach – one waved at the boat anchored far from shore.

The sailor heaved off the oars back into the rowboat, and inhaled the fresh salt-air his aching limbs heavy. It was always fresh. Always salt. But a faint whiff of something else blew in from the breeze…

He swung both legs into the chilly, brackish water and expertly seesawed, feet clambering over the tiny hills and valley in the sand. It was shallower here. He pulled the rowboat into the rough – a spray of cleansing salt purifying his face.

Eyeing the villagers – if that’s what they were – he hefted a spear but thought twice. Their youthful limbs showed no bronze, no bands of wooden shields, they stared at him, uncovered in the sun, lips red and chewing. All the same age but of various sizes and colors. Thirty of them dotted the beach landscape, some sat and swayed, chewing on a length of ruby-color thistle.

It reminded him of the shaft of wood – the short one he had picked from the Quartermaster.

He pulled out his spear and approached.

The one that waved, a pretty young thing, smiled wide at him and twirled. Her body was draped in tattered linen, barely clinging to her supple form. Surely the elements would have worn away her frame but everything about her radiated life. Around her neck was a string of rose-colored flowers, unimpressed by the blazing sun overhead.

She spit one giant burst of red from her mouth.

The breeze settled and for a moment, a powerful odor infiltrated his nostrils – making its way down through his throat and lungs to the base of his toes. Spice, not salt, smoke, and heat. It was the smell of his mother the day he said good bye, the sailor thought, the memory so strong he sunk to a knee.

The freezing saltwater shook his senses awake. He inhaled again, this time the salt blending with the flowery mist.

She picked a flower from her band and popped it into her mouth – sweetness erupting from her mouth, juices sticky. She smiled and saliva gushed from her mouth.

A distant shout from the boat.

The sailor reached out pulled out a small piece of reflective silver. He looked up at the sun poising it against his forearm.

Velvet caresses wafted over his nose and mouth – suffusing them until he could barely see the sun.

She waved at the boat beckoning it forward.

He balanced the beam and shook it – thrice – towards the boat far away. His entire body felt young and electric – the heady feeling of flowers, lilac.

He fell into her strong arms, his mothers, shining up at him.

He breathed in.

The salt taste gone replaced with nothing more but purple lilac.