[Josée's Note: Last Resurgence, Ali went on a recce with a new guy called Nat. To cut a long story short, he sold a year of his life to Imps to get information about a murderer. After they had fought tooth and nail together, and almost died together (1HP left at the end of the encounter EACH) Ali received a phone call a few days later, where Nat told her "See you around." Ali is determined to write Nat letters for the Imps to pass between them, and this is how she got on.]
Song List:
Stuck in the Middle with You - Stealers Wheel (made me laugh and seems to fit too well!)
Extra Dry, Extra Olives - Ramin Djawadi (fits her epiphany quite well, and is a lovely piece of music)
Infuriation and Introspection
Ali pushed herself away from the small, plastic desk and sighed, frustrated. She walked across the main living room of her one-bed flat on the edge of Riverside and into its tiny kitchen. Pulling a wine glass roughly from the cupboard, she poured herself a drink.
"Letters should not be this hard to write." She thought, as she took a rather large sip from her glass.
She couldn't entirely explain why she was writing a letter to begin with, if she was entirely honest with herself, and she wondered whether that was one of the issues she was having. She'd only met Nat the morning they went on their first (and only) recce together. It wasn't as if he were one of the Artillery lads; one of those she had grown to know better than perhaps any of their loved ones back home. He was just...some guy who had been picked up by the NDF for the same reasons she had...nothing more.
"But..." (Oh, how she hated thoughts that ended with a "but"...)
He was unusual. He was a ball of contradictions. He reminded her of a few of the new boys who had made their way out to Afghanistan partway through the conflict. They were so sure they knew themselves, but Ali and the others could see so much more in them; so much potential if they could only see it in themselves. Often they did, like in her own case. Battle was horrific, yes, and bloody, and vicious...but you learnt more about yourself in a single manoeuvre than you ever did in a classroom, or in training.
Nat was no different. What he said he was was disproved spectacularly by the time he and Ali had met the spectre(?) known as "Smiling Jack".
She sipped her wine thoughtfully. "He is..." she realised "...one of the Helmand boys." She smiled softly. That was why she was writing to him. He was just like the guys she'd spent over a third of her life with. He was, after a single trek, an ally. He was...one of the unit. One of her unit. One of her unit in uncharted regions. And she had to check he was alright, as the SO on the mission he had been on.
Somehow, rationalising it all back to her career made everything make sense. She timorously returned to the mass of scrunched paper on the floor and scrawled out lines of her previous attempts. Placing her glass down, she sat and psyched herself up. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the pen.
"Okay, Alixandra. Here we go." She said softly to herself, as she began to write. "One go, and it gets sent. Whatever's there."
No comments:
Post a Comment