Leaves

A proud-looking soldier stood on a hill. He stared out towards a big vast beyond; unmoving, and alone.

*

“Wow, that’s wonderful, James!” said Mrs Telford. “He looks so real – I love his big gold buttons. He’s just like The Nutcracker.” With lowered lids she walked on to look over his desk-mate Sarah’s shoulder, with a similar cooing, approving voice.

James smiled down at his drawing. The Soldier was his best work yet – he knew it would be as soon as he had pulled out Torch Red from the ‘PENCILS’ tote tray. It was already sharpened, and didn’t wiggle at all when he placed his fingertip against the lead.

His Soldier watched him serenely from the hill, upon which also stood a bare brown tree – copied exactly from the one outside the classroom window. The colours all matched up so perfectly. He couldn’t wait to take his drawing home at 3:00 to show his Mum and Dad.

*

The storm was not as humble as the Soldier, whipping the ground again, and again – it turned it blotchy and broken with mud. It splashed onto his uniform and dulled the vibrant striking red.

The rain lashed him for some more time, until in one snapping moment the sky cascaded into a humid night time. The rain was gone but drops of water still ran down his face.

*

James was quickly diving across roads when the car headlights were far enough away. Rain had already almost ruined his picture – it was just lucky he had had the good mind to stuff it in the inside of his coat.

He was dragged inside, and just as his hand reached eagerly into his jacket, he was instructed by his dressing-gown-clad Mum to go upstairs and play in his room.

At his desk, with soaking wet trousers balled up on the floor, he smoothed out the picture. He tried to ignore the rumbling booming voices coming from the floor, and looked upon his Soldier. He was all smudged. James tried to be just like the brave pencil man and didn't cry. Something smashed downstairs.

It had been idiocy to get excited over a stupid little boy drawing. He jammed it into the basket sitting by the desk, which contained all of his scribbles, and switched on his buzzing TV.

*

The Soldier guarded his hill through a long, dark season.

All the days and nights shared the same dull sky. There were times where he thought back to try and find in his memory the image of anything different – if it was there, however, he could never quite picture it.

He aged. His skin withered and crinkled, and with him the hillside grew noticeably older too. It seemed to yellow, fade even, around his boots which faded too. The tree withered beside him.

*

James was gathering the last of his things from the house he had grown up in. Mum was out today (thank Christ, as if he needed another screaming match about how he was an ungrateful brat for “leaving her on her own”).

He was rooting through the cupboard. From the very bottom he unearthed a big wicker basket, full of old, tattered paper. He rested back into a sitting position as he sifted through the drawings. He smiled at some, but his eyes softened in recognition of one in particular.
The old dusty Soldier stared up at him, still.

James, having just returned from tours round Bazra and Baghdad, felt a strange melancholy whistle through. Although it was he who had drawn the man, he felt as if he somehow understood the Soldier even better, now that they were comrades.

“James! Are you coming? Let’s go before she comes back?”

He shouted at the stairs. “She’s at the puggies, we’ll be fine!”

“Do you really think she would want to miss one last fight? I don’t.” The voice called back up at him.

James laughed. He pulled a bookies pen from his jacket pocket and, still smiling, scribbled onto the smudged picture. He looked at his Soldier, who now had an unmistakably pretty lady at his side to keep him company. He folded up the picture and placed it in his pocket.

*

The Soldier was peaceful once more. He forgot there had ever been days spent alone. Still his clothes and features faded. He did not mind, as long as the lady was there to diminish alongside him.

One day, however, there was some rain. It started light, and very blue – but it got heavier until it covered them, a flood, and carried the beautiful lady off into oblivion.

*

The picture was at James’ feet.

He was home from the hospital. He was told that there was no more sense in him being there anymore.

Upon returning, he had in frenzy set about pulling everything that belonged to her from the shelves and drawers – he couldn’t bear their smell, the familiarity. When he found, from an old Tesco bag emptied onto the bed, the Soldier, looking up at him contentedly with the beautiful wife by his side, his first instinct was to lash out like a beast in pain. He grabbed a blue ballpoint from the nightstand and heaved spiral after spiral over the drawing, especially aiming for the likeness of his own wife.

He felt sick, looking at what he had done. Streams of tears came from the eyes and he walked back down the stairs. Falling dejected onto the couch, he slept for the night.

When he awoke, his first thought was run up and see if he could save the picture. He knew this was hopeless really; the paper was too old and brittle for sellotape.

He looked around the floor, but they had certainly been moved. He ambled out into the hallway, and down until he reached the other bedroom.

“Jake… Jake, why are you up so early?”
His four-year old son turned from his floor and looked up with his usual bright, innocent face.

“Just drawing, dad. I found him in your room.” He pointed. “I drew him back again.”

James’ mouth dropped as he looked at the colours of pencils strewn about his son.

And there, indeed, he was – the messed up picture, containing only the vague trace of an image, and a fresh, crisp piece of paper with almost a perfect likeness, right down to the jacket, which his son’s small hand was still shading.
The two people in the picture had shifted over a little so that they stood beneath a big bough of a tree which, now, was thick green. The woman looked even closer to Jake’s mum now – he had coloured her with the bright blonde hair and the blues she always wore.

“I put them under the leaves. It’s better to be there, in case it rains.”
James stared dumbfounded at the wonderful bright Soldier, and his coloured-in wife, then back at his own obscured man.

With tears in his eyes, better tears now, he picked up his son with one arm and held him close, wrapping round him with the other arm, which held in its grasp two happy proud figures, the brightest of whom was the tall, strong soldier who would guard his hill for years to come.