Lark Ascending

Very quickly adrenaline and shock rushed in to dull the pain. Henry's world gained a clarity and a peace he'd never experienced before. Bleeding to death on a still very active battlefield Henry had never felt more serene. He could still feel the wound through his body and feel the warmth of his own blood collecting under and around him. But it didn't seem important and he felt detached from the battle raging around him. He lay on his back, very still, listening to the thud of his own slowing heartbeat drowning out the screams and yells of his men. The stars were winking at him even though it was daylight. Henry was pleasantly unsurprised to see a lark glide across the sky, filling its wings with the heat billowing into the sky from the fires that start on every battlefield regardless of location or weaponry. Henry smiled up at the little bird as it wheeled and floated. He'd seen larks all his life, it was the first bird his mother had taught him to recognise. After that he'd always seen a lark when he'd needed to. When his father had forced him, at eight years old, to watch his mother's painful final breaths a lark had perched in a tree outside the window and sung for he and his mother. The first time he'd been beaten at school a lark had jumped from tree to tree, following him on his tearful way home. In the moments after his first battle, after he'd seen things no young man should ever see a lark had made lazy circles in the air above him. A lark had eyed him carefully from its nest as he buried his first and only love. Henry had come to secretly believe it was the same bird, staying with him throughout his life and making itself known when he needed it. Letting him know he was not alone and that, despite the ugliness happening to Henry, the world was still full of beautiful things. And here it was again, flying joyfully through a cloudless sky as Henry quietly and calmly got on with dying. The world began to slow, the battle sounds became tinny then faded into silence. Henry noticed, with no more than an idle curiosity, that his heartbeat was little more than an occasional gurgle. Next to that all Henry could hear was the sound of many voices humming a beautiful tune. Curious to find the source of the music Henry turned his attention from the little bird to find the rest of the soldiers moving in silent slow motion. The only things moving in real time were the lark, still lost in its world of flight and whimsy mere feet above a world of death and fighting; and several figures moving through the ranks. The figures were humming a tune that Henry didn't recognise but that was immediately familiar, they moved with easy grace and each was bathed in a bluish white light. Each figure was hovering near or over one of the soldiers, on both sides. Despite the horrors of this bloody skirmish it seemed that nothing bad could happen while these peaceful figures stepped lightly between the men. One of them took a few steps towards Henry and smiled kindly at him, still humming the ethereal tune. Henry nodded back, he understood what was happening. He'd been close to death before but this time was different. This time the lark was here and the angels had come. The figure looked from Henry to the lark then back at Henry. It nodded too and seemed to understand something. Then Henry's world stopped. The final note of the humming held and faded and darkness folded over the old soldier and he was glad of it. When Henry's vision returned and he opened his eyes the air pushed at him from underneath and he flapped wings in what suddenly seemed like the most natural thing in the world to do. There was a lot of frightened noise and confusion below him but he paid it no attention. In an unconscious feat of mental aerodynamic arithmetic Henry angled his tail feathers and flapped his wings, he warbled a song of delighted joy and soared into the heavens.