THE BONFIRE HEART OF DB WINTERS
Adnan W Sarwar
I wrote this short piece over a hectic two day period after being inspired by the Devonshire countryside, thoughts of home and the military life. All mistakes, errors and typos are mine.
Dedicated to Hadassa Noble. A muse to spend eternity with.
16 August 2015
Adnan W Sarwar ©
Death visits Lancashire
There is something poignant about watching one man take another’s life on the battlefield. If both are honourable men who abide by the Commandments, neither truly wishes to kill the other. Death is naught but a means to an end to fulfil the obligations of soil. When I came for DB Winters, I thought his eyes betrayed regret of having taken Jeremy Smith’s life. DB was ashamed that he had taken life in war. I have come to take the souls of many soldiers in my time and that look of prodigal shame always makes me shudder. I am not meant to shudder. I am meant to take without feeling. I was not created to feel, but to terminate the function of flesh. DB did not make me shudder. He made me weep.
He was sat on Pendle Hill an old man with wrinkled eyes, bright blue eyes and wispy grey hair that stuck out from the sides. On his head was a green baseball cap, on his frame hung a thick smelly black coat and his baggy tattered jeans were torn on the left knee. I could see a wound through the tear. He must have scraped his knee climbing up the hill.
I recall every soul I have taken, but DB was unique. Many are too blinded to see me coming, never mind recognise me. DB had been waiting for me.
‘Finally caught up, old boy?’ he smiled as I landed to sit beside him. The view was breathtakingly gorgeous. Pendle is a little pocket of tranquillity in the Lancashire countryside, populated by small towns surrounded by vast swathes of greenery that is both overgrown yet, in a melancholy way, perfect.
‘Indeed’ I replied curtly. There’s no need in getting too close to the terminated. The rules of the game dictate professionalism at all times.
‘Got a cigarette, old boy? I’d rather like to depart with some fire in my lungs’
I remained still, gaze firmly fixed ahead. I had already spoken more than what my remit allowed me.
He quietly chuckled, took off his cap and scratched his head. Shuffling the cap back onto his skull, he began to stroke his chin.
‘Hell, then’
I could no longer keep my gaze fixed. I turned towards him, expressionless so as not to betray my alarm. How could he have known he was damned? Had this man committed something that was not in the black book we have for every soul? It was not beyond the realms of possibility. Some matters remain strictly confidential, that we lesser beings can never know. Man has many perks in the contract he holds with God.
‘All I ask is that you allow me to tell you my story before you take me down there’ he laughed, rubbing his hands with glee. This man was prepared for me. How strange.
My curiosity got the better of me. I had misread this man. There was more to him than Jeremy Smith. He had a secret I was not privy to. His sin intrigued me as my mind rushed through every possible act he could have done. I have sent many downstairs to Lou, but I have always been certain of the reasons. Being an intellectual, I cannot condemn a man to Lou the Accursed, Lou the Perverted, Lou the Crazy Masochistic Egotistical Foul Merciless Harbinger of Crisis - the list is endless - without knowing what he did to deserve it. I granted DB Winters an audience and when I took from him his final breath, I had grudgingly accepted that he was one of the very few who took my breath away before I took his.
The confession of DB Winters
Contrary to what you may think, my condemnation does not stem from something as banal as murder on the battlefield. Yes, I used the word banal. Do you think me cold and callous? Go ahead. I have lived many years a lonely old man and I will never require or crave a validation from men or angels.
It was a long war. I’m sure you were busier than in 1939-1945. It lasted ten long years and the scent of blood was the Chanel No.5 of the wealthy. It is always the poor that die violently for the sake of pseudo intellectual passions. 2021-2031 brought the world a war never seen before. I do not need to bore you with the details, Angel. You probably know them like the back of your creepy malignant decayed hand. I was initially stationed in London in 2024, before moving to Paris in 2025 and then spending some time in Singapore from 2026 onwards. All three roles were administrative, dealing with a lot of paperwork and coffees. Finally, I was stationed for active military service in Tehran with Jeremy in 2028. Men were needed and I had to make the numbers. I packed my bags once more, held a gun for the first time and stepped into the desert to dance with the Devil.
Jeremy and I had grown up in the small town of Nelson in Lancashire. Not a day passed by when our childhoods were not interrupted by some story in the news of bloodshed propagated by hardline zealots on both sides. It was a war of ideas and ownership over the fertile fruits of the earth. It was a war caused by the bastard sons of Satan. Religion was not an opiate but a blade shaped by satanic literalists with an insatiable love for the world and its resources. War was the word used to hide a global rape of commodities from nations rich in history but too divided to defend themselves against Western guns. In the middle of all this were countless young men like myself, plucked from school to be drafted and sent to battle for oil, nuclear weapons and to fulfil quite a sinister agenda: reduce world population.
More people, more problems right? Resources had become scarce (even water had became a vital commodity) and the great global powers had decreed the East had to be conquered. From the shoppers in London to the manual labourers of Nelson, we had been sent by our government to Tehran to keep the peace. Peace! Peace can never exist while man holds a gun. We were there to pillage all we could find under the shroud of democracy and also to remove as many people we could find. Our generals commanded us that children were ideal targets. Although I was stationed in Tehran, I knew many other classmates who had been sent to Damascus, Baghdad, Istanbul, Lagos, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Mumbai and Beijing to name a few.
I had always been a loner by choice growing up. I was content to spend my days reading, playing football and sneaking the odd smoke before heading home to my mother’s famous beans on toast. I grew to a healthy size, slim with short black hair. I was handsome, but had no interest in the typical Lauren down the road who preferred to do her nails rather than read a book. I knew Jeremy from our school days. We had played football regularly, but we were not particularly close. He was a burly fella who loved a fake tan blonde called Chantelle. I do not wish to be disrespectful to the dead, but the man was a brute. He adored the autobiographies of footballers, a kebab every Saturday night and wearing orange polo shirts. His hair was styled with Brylcreem and always as a wavy brown quiff with the sides shaved. Jeremy was a good man to play football with. However, engaging in serious conversation with him was to confine you eternally to a barge selling nothing but Mills and Boon.
But Fate spits revolutionary precedents, does it not? Do send Fate my regards, Angel. I have no bitterness or animosity towards Fate. It provides an order to life only a man in old age can appreciate. Jeremy and I were stationed together in Tehran and were ordered to do patrols together on Market Street. I thought him a harmless peasant. A typical jack the lad who believed in Queen and country. He did not question because he simply lacked the capacity to do so. For Jeremy, the ‘ragheads’ were at fault for all our ills. Propaganda is such a powerful contraceptive to the intellectually redundant. Oh, you must think I am being unnecessarily cruel. My dear Angel, do trust me when I tell you I speak nothing but truth. What do I have to gain from deception? I am destined for Hell. Nothing can cha
nge that, neither would I want it to. I have always done what I have had to do.
Six months passed in peace. We actually kept the peace in Market Street. Oh Angel, I am sure you have visited Market Street! It’s a long narrow dusty mile surrounded by tall builds both modern and old. Life can only start and thrive in Market Street. You can never die there, for what man is dead who has tasted the full flavour and vibrancy of life? The street itself was full of traders selling fruit, incense, bread and dates (all in that order). Jeremy and I had struck gold. We were in the nicer part of town. It was a family orientated neighbourhood where arguments did not centre on what sect you belonged to but why the prices were so high. Haggling was the language required to survive. Jeremy seemed disgruntled. He had on more than one occasion said to me that he had come to Tehran ‘shoot some ragheads.’ I let it slide. The man was a harmless oaf. There was no need for me to entertain his frustrations. I, for one, was jubilant. My dear Angel, I am a bookworm. Some men are born to fight, others are born to think and thrive. I firmly fall in the latter category. I was in a beautiful country where nobody knew me but they all respected me as a man of honour. I never hassled the civilians. I gave them my smile at all times. I escorted the children to the schools. I was diligent in keeping an eye on the territorial boundaries of the street in case any rebels turned up. A people who could not even speak my tongue loved me for my character and the fact I was their guardian. My soul was at peace for it had found its calling, its Paradise.
On one particularly balmy evening, I was sat in my uniform on a bench smoking a cigarette while watching Cyrus the Callous trying to rip off a young woman over the price of watermelon. I put out my cigarette and decided to step in. Cyrus was a notorious trader, always keen to haggle the best price for his produce. Maybe I am old fashioned, but if the woman is beautiful, then you give her the fruit at any price she wants. You do not haggle. Money cannot buy the affection of a great beauty, only kindness and warmth can. My mother was a sage when it came to women. Girls love wealth. Women love hearts.
‘Cyrus?’ I questioned while moving a hand to my gun.
He got the message. I paid him myself and handed the watermelon to the young woman. Then I saw her face. Angel, have you ever been knocked off your feet by a work of art? This woman’s face spoke to me in a language of old, striking the keys of my heart in a tune that in one shattering moment gave me a clear sense of who I was, who I am and what I was to be. She wore a cream cloak with the hood down and a nose ring in her left nostril. She could not have been more than 24 years of age. Her eyes were a gorgeous deep green which put me in awe, her dark brown hair fluttered with its own spirit in the desert wind and her smile crashed through every barrier of mine with the force of a thousand waves ascending all at once onto the deniers of Noah. From fresh-faced confident youth who had saved her from Cyrus the Callous, I was now a numb mute.
‘Thank you!’ she started, ‘You don’t speak much, do you?’
She smiled while I stood there staring at her in silence with what must have been the stupidest face I have ever mustered. My jaw was wide open.
‘My name is Zia Esther’ she said, holding out her hand.
I shook the hand.
‘DB Win-win-ter-ters’ I mumbled.
I was in love, Angel. Zia was the woman of my life. I spent the afternoon with her as she walked me through the street, explaining all the hidden stories of this magnificent part of the world. She was a student before the war studying Persian Literature. The war had disrupted her life, but she was content to see out the storms. Wars always pass, she said. As long as she and her mother could survive until peace reigned again, she would be grateful to God for all eternity. She glided down the dusty path, gesticulating wildly.
‘That is Akhi Ismail. He is the butcher but I am pretty sure he does not use real chickens. I think he uses pigeons’ she mused in perfect English.
Akhi Ismail waved at us, a skinny man with an overgrown moustache and a fat paunch. I made a mental note to avoid him at all costs. Pigeon butchers with moustaches can never be trusted.
It took a world war a thousand miles away from the rolling hills of Lancashire to start the spark in my guts again and give me butterflies for the first and final time.
*
I doubt you have ever been in love, Angel. Let me give you some insight. Sometimes you just know. Whether it is in a brief glance, an exchange of words or a small insignificant moment shared with another heart…you know that you are interminably bound to that person to share all that you hold dear without reservation. I have known people to take years to find their bonfire heart in the ribcage of another. I was one of the lucky ones. It only took me a few seconds. My life was once so beautifully charming. Ahem, pardon me. All an old man like me has are memories and I hope you can forgive my sentimentality. I see you are not at all keen on giving me that cigarette, are you? You like to see me blush, don’t you?
The weeks passed and I learnt more about her ways and began to share my thoughts, feelings and fire with this belle of Tehran. One balmy summer evening, I took her to one side and into a deserted side street where only a stray cat lay there asleep. I sat on the floor and stroked the cat gently. She joined me on the floor and wiped my sweaty brow. I was supposed to be on patrol, but I had to get away from Jeremy. My thoughts were elsewhere. I could not look her in the eyes. I kept stroking the cat, my focus concentrated on caressing it until it exploded so I would have an excuse to escape what could potentially be awkward. Telling a woman you love her.
I reached into my pocket with my eyes still on the cat and gave her a small silver locket. There was a small Arabic inscription written on a note inside. I had purchased it from Walid the Jeweller. I could not read the Arabic, but he assured me it was ‘bloody beautiful! Cheap as chips guvnor! The best a woman can have!’. Walid was a fan of all things quintessentially British. Unfortunately, his attempts at mastering the English dialect had stemmed from only having ‘Bargain Hunt’ and ‘Only Fools and Horses’ to watch on VHS.
‘What’s this for?’ she enquired.
Zia blushed as she opened the locket. To my surprise, she let out a small laugh and held the locket close to her chest with both hands while staring upwards to the sky and then back to me.
‘Do you know what this says?’ she said, her tone playful.
I shrugged.
‘You’re gorgeous? I don’t know’ I said defensively, taking my hands away from the cat.
She stroked my face.
‘There is no God but Allah, the beginning and end of all’ she whispered.
There was a tear in her eye. I took a deep breath.
‘We all need something to warm us at night. This world is getting colder. Strangers passing by…nobody offers you a shoulder…nobody looks you in the eye. I’ve been looking at the stars for a long time. I have been putting out fires all my life,’ I sighed looking her straight in those eyes while my innards trembled, ‘But I’ve been looking for you for a long, long time without realising it…just trying to breakthrough…trying to make you mine’.
Oh Angel, the silence was so loud! I risked it and held her hand. She never let go and all was reconfigured. Our destinies had changed.
*
Fate is cruel. Angel, you may recount earlier that I confirmed I have forgiven fate. Forgiveness is painful. The day everything changed began brightly enough. Sipping my coffee on a sunny Sunday morning at 6am, I started my patrol on Market Street. It was delightfully deserted. I went looking for Jeremy, when I heard several gunshots. I ran to the source of the noise. I dropped my coffee. In the middle of the street lay the bloody crumpled corpse of a boy no older than 5 years old.
‘Damn raghead. He was delivering messages to the rebels’
I looked Jeremy in the eyes. He looked excited and scared at the same time.
‘I did what I had to, DB,’ he started, ‘It is our jobs as soldiers to protect the peace’
‘Drop the gun, sol
dier’ I stammered, my eyes fixed on the dead boy.
Angel, what would you have done in that situation? Or maybe you were there. I was shocked and numb. Jeremy was correct and he had followed our instructions from General Command. We had been ordered to shoot on sight on the slightest hunch. But…but…it was a small boy. Regardless of whether he was delivering messages, a man never kills a child. There is no justification in killing a child. Never. Forgive me, but I could not resist.
Jeremy dropped the gun.
‘Damn raghead’
Those were his final words. I shot him dead. A bullet right to the head. Go to Hell. I’ll join you soon enough.
A soldier is trained to be responsive to any situation with a cool head. My life was over, so I had to say my goodbyes. The street started to awaken, the citizens startled by the sound of gunfire. Time was at a premium. I ran to her. Oh Angel, I ran so hard. General Command would arrive imminently to start their investigations.