Everyone Brave is Forgiven

by Chris Cleave

The surprised and disappointed air boys had when magic yielded so bloodlessly to reason.

Blisters were the true reason the men hated the enemy. The invasion of Poland was terrible, of course, but at least it was an event that had taken place outside of everyone’s boots.

“Very good. The Eiffel Tower is made of ferrous metal and it has a magnetic field that generates romance within a mile of it.”

“Oh, I hope I don’t teach. Because look what we did: we saved the zoo animals and the nice children, and we damned the afflicted and the blacks. You know what I do every day in that classroom? I do everything in my power to make sure those poor souls won’t learn the obvious lesson.”

“But what good is it to teach a child to count, if you don’t show him that he counts for something?”

“We must take turns, don’t you think? Every time one of us is buried like this, we shall dig the other out.”

Airmail had the particular violence of recency—it might leave them upbeat, or homesick, or a queer mix of the two—and so it was prudent for their officer to drop by and project a soothing equanimity. Sweethearts might blow cold or hot after all, and mothers might ail or improve, but the 3.7-inch heavy anti-aircraft gun would always provide a stable firing platform, providing that the leveling jacks on each corner of its carriage were competently deployed. This was the sentiment an officer should diffuse.

In the end I suppose we lay flowers on a grave because we cannot lay ourselves on it.

This was how a kind heart broke, after all: inward, making no shrapnel.

“YES BUT I’M LIKE a piano,” said Hilda. “I need men to move me.”

. . just want a tall man and a stiff drink. You could even swap the adjectives.”