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hetalia2010-09-01 05:00 pm
[Fanfic] The Photographer
Author: Lotus-Genie
Characters/Pairings: Picardy
Summary: A short, angsty drabble about Picardy after the Battle of the Somme.
Click
The photographer presses down on shutter. He raises his hand to wipe the blood out of his eyes. He is not sure how much his impaired vision will affect the final photograph.
Click
So many young men in their prime now lie dead; some of them had even considered a death on the battlefield as something glorious. How do they feel in their last minutes, as they lay on their ground, their bodies torn open and their throats clogged with their own blood? Did they still think of the glory that they would attain? Or had they realized the hell that they had stepped into? Such sad young fools.
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Boys barely out of school, who had heard of war only from their fathers and grandfathers, charging headalong into a hail of bullets because of a miscalculation from High Command. Now they lie dead, for a small area of land not big enough to bury them in. Fathers, sons, brothers who will never come home.
Click
The photographer stumbles and almost falls, breathing heavily. His headache has been getting worse and worse. However, he continues to take photographs of the aftermath of the battle. It is his duty.
Click
Perhaps one day, there will come a time that people will forget the names and faces of these men; forget what they died of and how they were sprawled upon the ground; forget whether or not friends were able to crawl close to each other during their final moments or if they were eternally separated; forget that this battle ever happened. He will not let them forget—he will remember this scene in every detail and his photos will let everyone else remember.
Click
Not too long ago, his open, fertile fields had been the envy of other regions. He remembers toiling in them day and night. Come autumn, he would step back and admire the golden fruit of his labors. These fields once watered by the sweat of a farmer’s brow are now watered by soldiers’ blood. Even the grass has turned into a sickening red color. Maybe the next harvest will be also blood red… Even if the blood fades, the memory will not. He cannot forget no matter how much he wants to. His head pounds and it gets harder for him to think.
Click
It is a lie when their teachers say “In dulce decorum est pro patria mori.” Their nation does not see their death as sweet or right; for a nation feels every death. Battles such as these become painful, jagged wounds. No, do not be deceived. Your nation will not be proud of your death. If you truly want to serve your nation, then live—live and save them the pain of mourning you.
Click
The photographer knows this. He knows this because he is a nation. Well, not actually a nation as much as he is a region, but this is still his land. The fallen soldiers are his people. The blood trickling from a gash in his head and falling into his eyes is the result of this battle; the result of so many of his people dying.
Click
Damn France. No, damn France’s boss, forcing him to witness such a thing. France himself is already suffering enough, since his nation contains the site of this battle. He has always been a peaceful land, more content to remain on his farm, taking pictures of cute girls or boys passing by. Sometimes he would help France along in his boss’s various…pursuits. But he has always been involved, against his will, in fights that he never asked for—for this one, he had been dragged into it by the messy alliances that his boss had made. And all for what? Improving his boss’s chances at re-election? To get back some of their already non-existent pride by defeating Germany? He does not know, but he is sure it is just some flimsy reason or another.
Click
The photographer finally collapses. The injury is too much for him and he feels himself losing consciousness. His blood mingles with that of his soldiers. He turns the camera to himself and frowns as he realizes that the lens is stained with blood. This photo will not come out as clearly as the others, but then again, it does not need to. It is the ones who have already died that need to have every detail of their forms preserved in his pictures. It is what they deserve. He knows that he will survive, that he will move on with his life, and that while he still remembers, the pain will lessen with time. It is just what nations do.
Click
He clicks the shutter one last time. It is a photo of the final casualty of the Battle of the Somme, the very land forever changed by this bloody conflict…
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…Picardy.
The battle of the Somme was among the bloodiest battles of WWI. It was fought in one of Picardy's open fields, so I made Picardy the main character for this. Because of his fields, Picardy has always been the site of several major French battles, and thus he mentions always being dragged into fights that he did not ask for. Just a quick, angsty drabble that I came up with because I got bored.
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What else do you write when you're bored? I'd like to know.
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