𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐀 𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍 | | 1917

27. THE STOPWATCH

" I'll never be that person again. "

-

MAY 17th
1917
The Second Battalion

-

WILLIAM HAD LEARNED to never count the time he was spending in the trenches. Not even when it reached weeks or months.

Because here, in war, you only got a single minute. One minute for everything. And one minute for nothing at all.
And for as long as those sixty seconds lasted; nothing before and nothing after mattered.
Because the only goal in your mind right then and there was to survive that one minute.

And then the next.

And then the next.

Will didn't really understand what he was doing anymore. What his purpose was. None of the soldiers knew what was going on, only that they did what they were told to.
What that now happened to be- he was unsure of. It almost felt pointless nowadays.

But what did he know? He was just a simple man. A man that wanted to go home and for this all to end.

But it just didn't work like that. It never did.

He should have thought of that before his courage got ahead of him and convinced him to enlist voluntarily in the army.

No one seemed to ask about them. And that seemed to be the thing the civilians didn't understand about people like him. He and the men around him were nothing of the heroes people saw them as- they just happened to be on their side. And what most people didn't know was that if the soldiers went up those steps into the front line – without first being doped with whisky – they'd probably go completely and utterly mad with fright.

He had been moved to some other place and he had written all about it in his letters to Josephine. He would empty it out to her and she would just understand, then do the same back.
It just worked. Like two puzzle pieces finding each other and completing the whole picture.

And that picture only contained one thing in Will's mind. The two of them together, without the war and without anyone else.

He rubbed his temple. So painfully aware of the stupidity in his thoughts.

His hand was safely placed on the outer pocket of his coat. There was a stopwatch underneath the washed-out fabric. One was given to him by Jo through the mail. And just like he had asked for- only able to time one single minute at a time.

It was embraced in copper and let out a low clicking sound every time its hand moved another millimeter.

Now that Jo was working in Paris, she had made sure to tell him all about the city which had never been to. To be honest, Will had never even been to France before the war.

He wouldn't say his first meeting here was very much pleasant.

Yet he did not regret his choice to join the army, at least that was what he told himself. It was just easier that way.
Besides, a soldier like himself was allowed to go home every ten or twelve months.

Home.

He let that word sink in for a moment.

The last time he was able to watch over the English landscapes; it was only for a slight moment. And he barely even remembered it. His family was overjoyed, but William himself could only sit there. He was overwhelmed by everything, unable to connect to anyone. Unable to talk of all the horrific things he had seen.