Holiday Tales: A Little Late for A Very Important Date

Our little challenge this week: write a 1000 word story centered around the holidays.  In the world of our story, but we couldn't use any character from our story.  Yep.  Not an easy task, at least for some.  I will admit that for me, I had a lot to draw on.  I'm working in fairytales, so there are literally dozens to choose from and I just had to settle on one.

It wasn't an easy choice, but then I heard a song:  Christmas 1915 from the show I'm currently performing in (as well as another member of this group...he sings in it and I cry).  Suddenly, this beautifully sad tale came to life and I wrote.  Below is the story, in a rather un-edited form, but in a way, I like how raw it is like that.  Enjoy.

A Little Late for Christmas by E. Logan

It was Christmas and I should have been on leave, enjoying my time with the love of my life, but I was late.

The bullet socked me in the stomach and I tumbled backward in the field.  I didn’t need to look down at my wound to know how bad I had been hit.  From the beginning of the Troll Wars, I had been a commanding field nurse.  Most of the time, I worked in the field hospitals and I wrote letters on the patients as they came in indicating how bad they were and whether they were worth saving.  I knew what letter I would mark on my own forehead, “M” for mortal.  I wasn’t going to leave this field.

The pain started first, searing and hot and then my body when into overdrive trying to comprehend all the nerves firing off at once.  It was confusing and I wanted to claw at the wound, but it took all of my experience to keep my hands pressed firmly to the wound and nothing more.  Then I began to look around.  There was little else I could do for myself but I wasn’t going to die lying in my own blood looking up at the sky.

I found a soldier, the young man who had been escorting me.  He was hit and lying on the ground.  I dragged myself over to him, screaming a few times with the effort.  As I came up beside him, I swung my pack around and looked him over.  He was in bad condition.  I would have hesitated in the hospitals to label him; he could go either way if he didn’t get treatment in time.  Well, I was here and I was going to start what treatment I could before my time was up.

I had as much pressure as I could on his wound, whispering to him that he was going to make it, when I flagged down a nursing unit.  They started to come to me, seeing my side completely soaked with my own blood, but I shoved them off.  “Him.  I want you to work on him.”  None of them moved, “I am your commanding officer and you will tend to this boy.”  They looked at me a moment longer and snapped to attention, working diligently to stabilize him for the electro-sling that would transport him to the hospital.

As they hauled him into the air, one nurse, a young, red haired girl, stayed behind.  By now, I had little left in me.  As I collapsed back, she dropped to her knees amongst the firing bullets and took my bloody hand in both of her own.  “I’m going to stay with you until the end, alright?  I’m just going to hold your hand.”  She smiled at me and as my body began to truly fail, she sang in a beautiful high soprano.

I started shaking and breathing became a chore but I was determined to watch her young face for as long as possible.  My limbs were like lead and all I could do was lay there.  With some of my last breathes, I dug into myself to find my voice.  “What’s your name?”

Her song stopped and the bullets were soft echoes in my ears.  “Ariel.  I’m stationed with the navy.  They’re drawing on all of us now for the fight.  The man I love is out there.”  She was so childlike and sweet.  “Do you have someone you love?”

I nodded and finally, my eyes left hers to look up at the smoke filled sky.  There were clouds there and blue vastness poking through.  “I do.”  Breathing was hard, so very hard.  My vision was clouding with a milky color and no matter how hard I blinked, it wouldn’t clear.  I couldn’t hear anything around me.  “There’s not time,” I drew my last breath.  “No time to say goodbye.”

The snow touched the gleaming granite.  I stood there but my feet didn’t leave any impression in the new snow.  I didn’t even cast a shadow over his kneeling form.  He placed a poinsettia plant near the name.  Already its leaves were red and he had tied a pretty white ribbon around the planter.  With a shaking hand, I watched him outline the delicately carved letters.  His fingers were tipped with pink from the cold.

Finally, I looked at the name and knew what I had known all along.  Lt. Alice Liddell.  March 1^st 3002 – December 25^th 3024.  Always looking beyond the glass.

I was dead and here was the man I had loved, kneeling in the snow and saying goodbye.  Desperate, I reached out, hoping to graze his shoulder, wipe his hair from his neck, anything.  Nothing happened.

He reached into his pocket to look at his old fashioned timepiece and snapped it closed.  The sound made me jump.  “I’m so sorry, Alice.  I’m so sorry I’m late.  That there’s no time to say hello or goodbye.  I’m just late.”  He pulled the rest of the chain from the watch out of his pocket and laid it gently on the top of my tombstone.  I ran my fingers over it, though I couldn’t feel the warm metal.

I looked at his face, so worn with the toll of the war.  “It’s okay, Mr. Whitehare,” I whispered into the wind knowing he couldn’t hear me.  “You’re here for Christmas and that’s all I ever wanted.”  Slowly, I leaned forward and with a tear rolling down, placed my lips on his cheek in a chaste, sweet kiss.  As I pulled away, he touched the spot I had kissed him.  At first there was shock and then I saw a small, tender, and sorrowful smile come to his lips.

“Merry Christmas, my love, my little Alice.  I’ll be on time next year.”