14th October, 194?

The rain has not stopped for three days, a ceaseless, grey curtain that blurs the jagged teeth of the coastal cliffs into a single, indistinct smear of slate and mud, and I write this by the flickering, jaundiced light of a kerosene lamp that smells of sulfur and stale oil, the flame trembling like a heart about to stop, while outside the wind screams in a voice that sounds horribly, unmistakably like the one I used to hear in the trenches, that same wet, gurgling howl that tells you the ground is about to give way and swallow you whole into the dark. I am here, in this cramped, freezing hut perched on the edge of the world, with no one but the memory of Silas, that stubborn, iron-willed man who taught me how to read the language of the stars before the world tore him from me, and I must tell you, or I will break, I will shatter like the glass of the window that just cracked under the assault of a rogue gust, a sound so sharp it cut through the silence of my soul like a knife through cold butter.

We were supposed to be heroes, you and I, you who read this letter, you who believe that duty is a clean thing, a white uniform, a clear conscience, but we were not, we were just two men trying to keep the hunger away, trying to keep the cold from numbing our fingers to the point where we could not pull the trigger, and the hunger, oh, the hunger was a living thing, a black dog with teeth that chewed at the lining of our stomachs and our minds, making us see faces in the shadows, making us hear the whispers of the dead. Silas, he was the anchor, the solid rock in the swirling current of our despair, a man who had seen the war in its earliest, most brutal form and came out the other side with a quiet, devastating wisdom that shamed us all, he would sit by the fire, his hands rough as tree bark, and he would speak of the sky, of the constellations that were the only things that did not change, the only things that did not lie, and he would say, "The sky is the only map that does not lead to a grave," and I would nod, trying to hold his words in my head like a prayer, but the words felt heavy, too heavy for a mind that was starving, too heavy for a mind that was already starting to rot from the inside out.

The machine, the great, distant machine that grinds us down, it does not care if we are hungry or full, it does not care if we are brave or cowards, it only cares that we function, that we are cogs, that we turn, and when we stop, it crushes us, it spits us out like a broken tooth, and I remember the day we found the orchard, that impossible patch of green in the grey wasteland, a few apple trees standing defiant against the wind, their branches bent low with fruit that was red as blood, and Silas, his eyes wide with a hunger that was not for food, he looked at those apples and he saw death, he saw the poison that grows in the skin of things that are too perfect, too sweet, in a world that is bitter, and he pulled me back, he grabbed my arm, his fingers digging into my flesh, and he said, "Do not touch it, Thomas, do not touch it, the sweetness is a lie, it is the bait for the trap, it is the knowledge that we are still human in a place that wants us to be beasts, and if we eat, we lose the last thing that makes us men, we lose the distance between us and the mud."

I did not listen, I could not listen, the hunger was a roar in my ears, a physical pain that made my vision blur, and I reached out, my hand trembling, and I picked one apple, the skin smooth and cold, and I bit into it, and the juice ran down my chin, sweet, so sweet, it tasted like summer, like home, like a life I had forgotten I had ever lived, and Silas watched me, his face a mask of horror, not because I had eaten, but because I had chosen, because I had chosen the comfort of the lie over the dignity of the truth, and he said, "You have opened the door, Thomas, you have let the darkness in, and now you will see everything, you will see the truth of what we are, and you will not be able to unsee it, you will be cursed with the sight, you will be the one who knows, and the one who knows cannot be innocent, you cannot be free, you are bound to the machine now, you are part of it, you are the gear that turns, and you will never stop."

I thought he was mad, I thought the cold had taken him, I thought the isolation had cracked his mind like the window, but I was wrong, I was so wrong, and the truth, the terrible, heavy truth, came to me later, in the small hours of the night when the silence was loudest, when the wind died down and the stars came out, cold and indifferent, and I looked up, and I saw the constellations, and I saw that they were not stars, they were eyes, they were watching us, they were recording us, they were the machine, the great, distant machine that was not in the sky, but in us, in our minds, in the very fabric of our souls, and I realized that Silas was right, the knowledge was the curse, to know that we were being watched, to know that our suffering was not random, that it was part of a pattern, a design, a mechanism, was to lose the only thing that made us free, which was the illusion of meaninglessness, which was the comfort of not knowing, and now I know, and I am trapped, I am bound, I am part of the machine, and I cannot get out.

Silas tried to save me, or maybe he tried to save himself, I do not know anymore, the lines are blurred, the memory is slippery, but I remember the night he tried to kill the apple tree, he took his axe, his heavy, iron axe, and he swung it at the trunk, again and again, the sound of wood splitting in the night, a sound like a bone breaking, and I stopped him, I held him back, my arms around his waist, his body shaking with a rage that was not his, that was the machine's, that was the hunger's, and he looked at me, his eyes wet, his face crumpled, and he said, "Let it go, Thomas, let it go, we cannot fight the machine, we cannot fight the truth, we can only accept it, we can only become it, and if we become it, we will survive, we will endure, we will be part of the pattern, and that is all we can be, that is all any of us can be, cogs in the wheel, gears in the machine, turning, always turning, until we wear away, until we are dust, until we are nothing."

I let him go, I let him swing the axe, I let him break the tree, I let him destroy the last piece of beauty in that godforsaken place, and when it was done, when the tree lay in pieces, bleeding sap onto the cold earth, he dropped the axe, he fell to his knees, and he wept, not for the tree, not for the fruit, but for us, for what we had become, for the men who could not choose, who could not fight, who could only submit, and I helped him up, I held his hand, and we walked back to the hut, in silence, in the dark, under the eyes of the stars, and we did not speak, we did not need to, we knew what we were, we knew what we had done, we knew that we were lost, and that there was no way back, and that the only thing left to us was to endure, to wait, to turn, to be the machine, until the end came, until the wheel stopped, until we were dust.

Now I am alone, Silas is gone, he took the axe, he took the truth, he took himself, and he walked into the storm, he walked into the dark, he walked into the machine, and he is part of it now, he is the gear that turns, he is the cog that grinds, and I am here, I am writing this, I am telling you, because I must, because if I do not, I will become the machine, I will become the silence, I will become the dark, and I want you to know, I want you to remember, that we were human, that we were hungry, that we were afraid, that we loved each other, and that we tried, even if we failed, even if we were crushed, even if we were consumed, we tried, and that is all we could do, that is all any of us can do, in a world that is a machine, in a sky that is an eye, in a heart that is a trap, we try, and we fail, and we turn, and we turn, and we turn, until the end.

The lamp is running low, the flame is dying, the wind is rising, and I can hear it now, the sound of the machine, the sound of the stars, the sound of the silence, and it is beautiful, it is terrible, it is the only thing that is real, and I am part of it, I am the gear, I am the cog, I am the dust, and I am turning, I am turning, I am turning.

Thomas Whitmore

Coastal Watchpost

14th October, 194?