A Reason to Live by Daniel Caleb Bussey

A warm breeze blew through the Georgian valley. The grasses rippled, as a still lake ripples from a tossed stone. The sun shone out bright as the sweet smell of spring drifted on the air. The breeze moved evermore twisting and turning, following it’s predetermined path. It swept over the town of Blussby, disturbing the ashes of a long passed fire. It continued on to fields of golden wheat, brilliant in the afternoon light. Brushing away the husks, seeming to make a ghostly path, it left the field and dove into the woods. It stirred the water of a nearby babbling brook and followed down it’s winding current. A strange sight greeted the lone breeze further down the waters. A woman sat along the brook, dressed in her Sunday best, but soaked from head to toe. If this was not peculiar enough she was sobbing softly to herself. The breeze, as if to wipe the tears away, softly caressed her face with sweet spring air. A letter sat half-opened, apparently dropped thoughtlessly as the women made her way to the brook. It was written in strong letters of a man. This is how it read:

Dear Anna,
By the time this letter has reached you I will in all probability be dead. This is my last say on my life and what I have done. I will write no memoir, I kept no journal, this is it. I have thought long and hard about what I want to say to you. Where do I begin? Maybe with the only things that I know. I know that I have made mistakes, that I have let people down, and I know that without a doubt I have always loved you. Maybe the realization that we will never see each other again has set that strongly in my mind. When this war had ended, I hoped to see your face. After seeing so much death and bloodshed I was waiting to seeing something beautiful again. Life becomes bleak in a world torn with pain. Friends against friends and brothers against brothers. This war has emotionally damaged almost every man I have met, I myself have not escaped it either. Even before the war, I went through a living hell. Maybe that is why I made the mistake of following the hate. Hate that had welled up inside of me ever since that fire. I was to blind to see the truth, that I already had what I needed. I ran after my death head first but I could never find it. Now I don’t want it, but I must face it. I hope to ask for forgiveness, if not from man then from God. I wish this war had never happened, I wish I could live with you in peace, but that is not reality. Reality is that I will not be dieing alone. I will have you with me. I will have my mother, my father, my brother. Oh my brother how I have wronged you. I was never alone and I won’t be in the end. I love you.

-Irrevocably yours William H. Carter
P.S. Remember the brook

Anna sat alone, the tears were gone now, her clothes dry. She stared off over the brook, listening intently. The breeze was gone, the sun was now going down. Darkness would soon engulf the world. Yes I remember the brook. I was there. A shadow of a smile crossed her face then disappeared. She picked up the letter and slowly walked away from Greengrowth brook.