The drums of war seem to beat most favourably at this time of evening, with a steady morse code precession, a message calling all to arms and to the trenches, as the sun gradually dips below the horizon. Flares then erupt into the still night air, raining down sparks as if multi coloured snowflakes, as sirens wail to wake the dead and thus spread panic, and shells whistle by splattering muck and mire, all with a deafening hammering thunder. Now orders are sent forward for the men to make ready for the advance, and I am cowering, yes cowering within my foxhole, slithering in the muddy ooze from fears which will not let me go. My stomach is wrung into twisted knots under the pressure of awaiting the final battle call, and still the tension mounts.

The ground now shudders, someone nearby falls screaming, in a blood spraying twitching death dance, and machine guns fire. How many people must get tangled up in barbed wire, step on landmines, be shot at and piled into shallow graves before we, as a society, see that it is wrong to carry on this way? It tears me apart, I want nothing more than to quit this battle, yet at times I feel helpless to take any course of action, other than to blindly follow orders. Back and forth I therefore pace in my foxhole, ranting and raving, possessed with a fever until foaming at the mouth. If someone could see my face, in the flash of the flares, they might think that I was a fiend come to rip their heart out!

A soldier is brave, a soldier is strong, a soldier will not flinch when faced with death, and a soldier fights for freedom. Therefore, I shall show them a true soldier! Let the flares light up the night sky, fire the shells and the guns, blow the whistles loud and shrill to call the men over the wall! Over the wall! To arms, to arms!

Over we go, to death or victory, over I go as well, yet in the opposite direction, throwing down my weapons and mule packs. The sergeant then yells at me, blowing again his shrill whistle, calling me back with a warning. However, I simply look at the remains of dead barren trees, imagining birds chirping away in them, feeling a warm breeze on my skin and a lightness of body after so long having been weighed down. The sergeant yells his final warning of court martial, I hear the click as he loads his rifle, and I can sense him aiming at the back of my head. But I am walking away, walking to freedom, I can see the trees now full of summer leaves, children playing in the shade, flowers in full bloom and birds sing…

Into the darkness I then suddenly tumble and fall swirling down into the void unfathomable spiralling like a top out of control uncertain of my destination a free-for-all rolling-flying fuck through a spinning donut helter-skelter in the summer swelter a hodge-podge jumble, brilliant is the only word to describe this sensation of passing by way of osmosis from the physical into the hands of the great and mighty Goddess/God/Demon/spirit what have you, like a warm creamy smooth Guinness sliding down one’s throat, it’s the world turned topsy-turvy flapjack style with a side of raspberry jam, like waking from reality to find that your wettest dream come true when that something you were afraid would snap finally does and you can relax in the recoil as the tension is released and you can again take a gulp of fresh air for the first time in so long and you almost choke drowning on the sharp coolness of the intake, coughing you fall to your knees like rubber laughing that you are free, yes my prison term is over, finished with and all agony gone, I am free to run to yell, to cry with joy and to dance a merry jig especially if you don’t know how to, to heal your wounds and to know that you have died to reach this point of resurrection, to eat grass and roll on the damp earth, wash your face with it, smell the rich decay like perfume, to trip and fall and skin oneself, to yell out loud I AM ALIVE, ALIVE I TELL YOU, you bastards, so Pogue Mahone!