You are walking through a field of glass, and the air is thick with the scent of wet iron and old blood, and you do not know if you are awake or if you have finally died, because the sky above you is not a sky but a vast, bruised membrane that pulses with a slow, rhythmic throb like the heart of a giant beast buried beneath the soil, and the grass under your feet is made of sharp, green needles that pierce your skin without bleeding, and you are wearing a coat that is heavy with water you cannot feel, and you are holding in your hands a small, white bird that is dead, or perhaps it is only sleeping, but its feathers are matted with something dark and viscous that looks like ink, and you remember your mother’s hands, those long, pale fingers that used to weave straw into baskets in the quiet of the barn, and how the smell of straw and dust and her lavender soap used to be the only thing that kept the noise of the war from shattering your mind, and now you are here, in this place that is neither here nor there, where the wind blows from the left and the right at the same time, and you are trying to find the bridge, the one your father spoke of in his delirium, the bridge that would lead you back to the world of the living, or perhaps to the world of the dead, for there is no difference anymore, and you walk, and the glass field stretches out before you, endless and jagged, and you hear a sound, a low, humming vibration that seems to come from the very ground, and you realize that the ground is breathing, and you are afraid, but you are also calm, because you have been afraid for so long that fear has become a kind of home, a familiar room you can close the door on, and you keep walking, and the white bird in your hands grows warmer, and you feel a pulse, a faint, fluttering beat against your palms, and you look down, and the bird’s eyes are open, and they are black and deep and full of a sorrow that is not its own, and you know, with a certainty that is cold and sharp, that the bird is you, or that you are the bird, or that the bird is the vessel for the part of you that refused to burn when the trenches did, and you are crying, but there are no tears, only a dry, aching thirst in your throat, and the bridge appears, not as a structure of wood or stone, but as a ribbon of light that floats above the glass field, and it is pale, almost invisible, like a ghost of a bridge, and you know you must cross it, because the alternative is to remain here, in this endless field of glass, where you are safe but you are also nothing, a mere echo of a person who once had a name and a mother and a life, and you step onto the bridge, and it is soft under your feet, like moss, like the memory of moss, and as you walk, the sky above you begins to tear, and you see the stars, but they are not stars, they are eyes, thousands of eyes, watching you, judging you, remembering the things you did and the things you did not do, and you feel the weight of it, the terrible weight of being seen, and you want to run, to jump off the bridge, to smash the glass, to scream, but you do not, you keep walking, because you have learned that screaming does not change anything, that it only makes the pain louder, and you reach the other side, and it is a room, a small, dark room with a single window, and in the center of the room is a bed, and on the bed is a woman, and you know it is your mother, but she is old, impossibly old, her face a map of wrinkles, her hair white and thin, and she is sleeping, and you sit beside her, and you take her hand, and it is cold, and you hold it, and you wait, and you wait, and you wait, and the hours pass, or perhaps the years pass, and you do not know, and then, suddenly, she wakes, and she looks at you, and her eyes are clear, and she says, in a voice that is soft and dry, "You are late, Thomas," and you know, with a shock that stops your heart, that you are not in the afterlife, you are not in a dream, you are in a hospital bed, in a world that is still broken, still warring, still bleeding, but you are alive, and the bird is gone, and the glass is gone, and the bridge is gone, and you are just a man, sitting beside his mother, holding her hand, and the tragedy is not that you are alive, but that you are free, and the freedom is a cage, and the cage is the only thing that keeps you from flying, and you look at her, and you see the pain in her face, the pain of losing you, the pain of waiting, and you know that you have paid the price, not with your life, but with your innocence, with your ability to believe that the world is kind, and you are still here, and the war is still on, and the blood is still flowing, and you are a prisoner of your own survival, and you will never be the same, and you will never be free, because freedom is the ability to choose, and you have chosen, and the choice is to stay, to suffer, to remember, and you hold her hand, and you do not let go, and the light from the window begins to fade, and the darkness comes, and you are afraid, but you are also calm, because you are home, and home is the place where the pain is, and you close your eyes, and you dream of glass, and you dream of birds, and you dream of a bridge that you will never cross again, because you have already crossed it, and the other side is where you are, and the price is everything, and you pay it, and you pay it, and you pay it.