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“no!” …

he said, “they’ll ne’er take Piccadilly!”
then downed a pint in one gulp …
tucking five pounds under the edge of
his sodden Churchill coaster,
“bloody awful price!” he grumbled quietly,
turning sharply on his heel to
depart the pub in his best
soldier’s march -
briarwood pipe trailing blue
smoke the entire way
like a reluctant, foggy phantom …
or perhaps the ghostly remnant of
a long lost bonnie lass
joining the cloud of soot that hung
just below the ceiling lamps …
as the pub door jingled and closed
behind him with a growl,
a gust of wind and snow slapped his
careworn cheeks and sobered
him up a wee bit,
taking him instantly back to
the trenches and mud -
his mates’ faces frozen in death
and the smell of mustard gas
stinging his eyes …
he’d had these flashbacks for
many years now
and they never got better with time
just as lucid and real as ever
just as terrifying
just as hopelessly brutal
and always with the question “why?”
why was he the one left alone to
carry this yoke?
lonely, empty, aching in his marrow and
his dejected soul,
he’d had enough of these cold strolls to
the corner and back
the hedgerow his only companion …
Tilly was gone seven years now
Ol’ Tom, his Pembroke Welsh Corgi,
had also passed just recently,
and as the last of his regiment he’d lost the
craving for a cold Guinness at
the end of the day -
the final straw …
‘enough, already’ he thought to himself,
retrieving the prize German pistol from deep in
his woolen coat pocket 
(the face of the enemy soldier he took it
from flashing in his mind)
“God forgive me, lad” he spoke to that ghost
“we did our duty” …
when he got as far as the old cemetery he
stopped walking, turned and saluted the
garden of gravestones
his eyes watering with memories …
“no!” he yelled again,
“they’ll ne’er take Piccadilly!”
as his bent, arthritic thumb pulled
back the hammer of the
9mm Luger,
and he smiled with the
thought of seeing Tilly again
Ol’ Tom beside her
and slowly closed his weary,
but sparkling …

eyes.







Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, June 23, 2024
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