The Night Passes Swiftly

By Rebecca Morgan

Big Ben chimes the hour. One. Two. Three. Four… all the way to nine. Nine in the evening. But it seems darker. Blacker than midnight. Not even a candle allowed. Shadows lie heavy over London, suppressing all thoughts and laughter. I toss off the covers, trying to free myself from the constricting bed clothes.

We can hear them before they come. The humming and thrumming of hundreds of planes as they loom closer. The sirens commence their mournful wail. Danger in the skies.

“Margaret, wake up. They’re here.”

There are many alluring ways to be awakened from sleep, or lack thereof. This is not one of them. I leap out of bed, snatching the bag that stays by my bedside.

Outside the vibrating hum tears through the air, shredding it to pieces, raining down death and destruction. The sound of impact. Dirt splays upward, showering down timber and blood. Searchlights weave across the sky, seeking a plane to bring down. Peter crushes my hand in his as he drags me across the yard to our shelter. Yanking the door open, he shoves me inside and follows, closing the door against the attack.

We both breathe deeply, trying to settle down for what we know from experience is going to be a long night.

Far away a bomb detonates. I shiver, and Peter scoots closer, closing the distance between us. “I’m here,” he whispers, his breath tickling my ear. But I can’t rest in that. All I can think is that he won’t be here for long. This is not how we were supposed to spend our last night together.

I thought my world had ended when his orders came. Six months of training. Newspapers predicting war and the end of the world.

“We were supposed to go dancing.” I feel like a whining child, but I don’t care. One ought to be entitled to whining when someone is trying to kill you and your husband is about to be sent God-knows-where.

But my mood has no effect on Peter. He surveys the small space, eyes twinkling in the dim lantern light, a smile spreading across his face. That smile is what first captivated my heart. Peter stands now, head nearly reaching the ceiling of our six-foot shelter. He holds out his hand.

“May I have this dance?”

I look around at the corrugated metal space with blankets and bread. Pillows stacked on a bed big enough only for one. Us in our house clothes. A laugh spills out of me. I place my small hand in his as he slowly pulls me to my feet.

“I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to dance with such a pretty young lady as you,” Peter murmurs against my ear. “Do you come here often?”

I giggle. “Don’t think so highly of yourself,” I tease. “I do, in fact, come here often and have had many wonderful partners.”

Overhead a bomb shrieks.

Peter glances around in mock horror. “Then I shall have to fight them off one by one.” He sobers, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “It does surprise me that I’m so lucky to have you,” he whispers.

My reply is cut off as the roar of planes echoes in the metal shed. A bomb screams its way through the sky and detonates, oh so close. Boom. The sound ricochets as buildings collapse and glass explodes. Fire cracks. More bombs fall as the sirens still wail. Vibrations shake the shelter. We’re going to die in a metal tomb. I fall to my knees. Covering my ears. Scream. Scream till it rends my bones over the terror. The fear. That Peter is going to leave me all alone to face this. Alone. Alone. Alone. That he may die and I’ll be alone. Alone. Alone. The planes taunt me, reveling in my misery, feeding off my fear. My hands shake. I tangle them in my hair to harness them.

“Margaret. Margaret.” Peter’s desperate voice reaches through my chaos, reaching down deep to pull me back to the surface. Breathing calm back into me. I lean into him as he holds me tighter, let him soothe me till the shaking stops. Outside, death still reigns. Our last night can’t end this way, huddled together in terror. With everything in me I stand, wrenching out of Peter’s grasp. He gives me a quizzical look.

“Let’s finish our dance,” I whisper, voice unsteady. Before this swiftly passing night ends. Before the dawn creeps across the sky and takes him away from me. And so, we dance. Swaying back and forth, leaning into each other, memorizing each other.

“I’ll write you often. As soon as I can. When I can.”

A consoling thing to say. Said by every man since God created the earth—and humans, war. And we both know it won’t happen. Because it can’t. Not on the battlefield. Not in the trenches.

Time is going by so fast. A sob escapes me, rattling my bones deeper than the bombs. I am going to miss the sound of his voice.

It’s been hours. Or maybe one. I can’t tell. I only know the skies are silent. A silence that screams its pain and sorrow after the assault. Peter and I sit, side by side. Words too deep to be said don’t need to be said at all.

I hold tightly to him, breathing in his scent of Old Spice and Earl Grey. I memorize the shape of him. His soft blue eyes. His adorable nose. But memories wither, though we do our best to remember. He’ll fade, no matter how much I love him. And if he doesn’t return, over the years, he’ll be forgotten. A shadow that haunts my past. A dream you can’t remember in the morning. Because time, like this night, passes swiftly, stealing our memories, numbing pain behind years gone by.

I shudder.

Above the silence, Big Ben chimes the hour.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rebecca Morgan has been writing stories since before she could read—or at least, she thought she was!  All these years later, she is definitely writing, having written four novels and countless stories and poems. Rebecca aims to write stories that heal and bring healing through the written word. Besides writing, Rebecca loves cooking, reading, journaling, blue oceans, and salsa. She lives in the South with her family.

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