From Here to There by Justine Alley Dowsett

Author:Justine Alley Dowsett [Dowsett, Justine Alley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mirror World Publishing

The three of them could not march at night even if they had possessed the strength, for the monsoon clouds hid the stars and moon completely, rendering them utterly blind. So when evening approached, the three of them moved into the jungle and patiently harvested half a handful of worms, grubs, and snails from rotting trunks and beneath stones. These they ate raw. Their tent and other gear had long ago been discarded as too heavy, so they crawled into a niche between the giant roots of a tree where the rain would only spatter them rather than fall on them directly, then they curled up together for warmth and subsided into sleep.

When dreams came to Morita, the rain had stopped. And the sun….

Oh, the sun.

In the dream, he was walking the eternal jungle trail, but the rain had ended and golden sunlight transformed the jungle into a land of emerald so vibrant that he forgave the jungle for its trespasses against him with all his heart. Grey and wrinkled and chilled from weeks of being soaked by constant rain, he rose and stood naked in the warm sunlight with his arms outstretched, swaying in peace like clean linen on a line. A gentle breeze swirled white leaves around him. These leaves had slits for eyes and calmly smiling mouths, he noticed. Masks. With a bloom of joy, he realized the rusting metal soul masks of the fallen had been transmuted into delicate white rice paper. Another miracle of the sun, the wondrous sun. He gathered these weightless masks here and there as he journeyed down the trail, which had turned from a muddy russet morass to a warm white chalk that healed his cold and blistered feet. Covering leagues effortlessly, he finally arrived at the glittering blue coast with every soul mask safely retrieved, and there he simply flung them into the air. The salt winds carried the soul masks high into the sky above the cerulean waves. This soul-fall of thousands tumbled merrily over the sunlit sea back toward the homeland. Safe now. His duty done, he spread his arms to the sun and his soul rose from his body, smiling and free, to join the sky-dancing migration home....

With a twitch, Doctor Morita awoke to find his body as wet and cold as a corpse enclosed in clay. But he was smiling, his cheeks dimpling just enough to touch the inner surface of his army mask. A good moment to die, this, and he waited in anticipation of a long slide into whatever dreams death held. But death did not come. With a sigh, he forced open his gummy eyelids.

He was still curled up between the roots of the tree, and the monsoon clouds had barely started allowing grey morning light to leak down through the jungle’s canopy. He drew his hands from the warm place between his concave thighs to shake awake Sergeant Teneke, who was lying in front of him. The Sergeant awoke, hacking against a dampness in his lungs.

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