𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐀 𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍 | | 1917

29. WEATHER

" Nowadays, it feels like I'm waiting for something that isn't going to happen. "

-

MAY 20th
1917
The Second Battalion
-

THE DAY HAD FINALLY ARRIVED. Will stood by his bunk bed. What a sad excuse for a bed that thing was. Yet he made it work.

Upon the cold, metal surface, laid his backpack. He seemed to have lost most of the things that earlier had been placed inside its overused folds. Only a couple, important things remained. His tin can, containing the photos of his family, being one of them.

It felt surreal- walking away from the war scene, only to a couple of weeks later, come back. He got a couple of dirty looks from men around him.

As if they weren't ready to leave as well.

Will looked down at his fidging knuckles. Was he nervous? And if that's the case; why? Perhaps the young soldier had gotten used to the life in the trenches that everything else felt wrong. As if it was too good to be true. As if anything could happen at any point to disturb the peace.

It probably could though.

Yet none of that stopped a subtle smile from appearing on his lips. It was too hidden for anyone around to notice. But Will knew.

There was a train leaving in three days in which he would be on. Yet this train wasn't going to Calais like most of the others.

Will was going to Paris.

It was probably a stupid idea, he knew that. But it was his moment and he knew he wanted to see her again. At least somehow.

It was harder to get through the narrow pathway than he first remembered. The ground was uneven and he had to jump every other step to not accidentally stamp into puddles of what he assumed to be rainwater, though it could just as easily be something much more filthy that Will did not want to imagine.

He looked forward but stopped to look away when a group of men came coming his way. They were lifting stretchers, occupied by still-laying soldiers. He would like to believe that they were only wounded, but there was most likely something else. He never looked to find out.

Perhaps it was for the better.

He had seen enough of that already.

He did not know the time, only that the sun now was hidden underneath the stormy clouds upon the gray sky. Everyone there knew that it was gonna rain any second, so the young corporal felt pleased that his time at the battalion soon was to be over.

Perhaps it was nicer where Jo was.

He remembered how she sometimes would send him random pieces of literature she would find. It could be anything, really. From the back of magazines - pages ripped out of classics from the library - poetry she came across, so gently. She had told him that she enjoyed the words. "They described suffering in such a beautiful way, " as she would say. It made her want nothing more than to suffer a little more.

And even though Will had yet to understand whatever she meant in that - it didn't matter.
Because nothing else mattered once her letters came. Whether it was Edgar Allen Poe writing on the thin parchment, or Jo herself. It was meant for him and no one else.