one last for the boys

“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