Victorious by Jonny Eberle
“Victorious,” was written in response to Steve LaBerge’s installation, “Touching Down in Tacoma,” on display at the Pantages Theatre as part of the 2nd annual Tacoma Light Trail. Learn more about the artists and the project at www.tacomalighttrail.org
It was quiet, being the last of one’s kind. The being sat down on a fallen tree, touching down as soft as a feather, and surveyed the vast desolation. She almost couldn’t believe it. The war was over. She had won. Or rather, she had survived.
The bones of the enemy littered the ground. A blanket of fog danced over and around them. It was beautiful. Strange, the being thought, that there should be so much beauty at the end of the world.
She did not know what to do next. She had shed her armor first thing, leaving it to stand guard over the emptiness. There was no other use for it now. One of the enemy’s visual transmitters lay discarded on the ground, its crystal display clouded with multicolored static. No one left to broadcast, she thought.
She did not expect to win the war. In fact, she had suspected it would never end. Now, she was alone on the battlefield, surrounded by her slain enemy. She wondered who they were and what they were fighting for. It was too late to ask now.
Row, row, row.
She hummed softly to herself, an alien tune that drifted over from the enemy trenches before the last skirmish. A battle cry, perhaps, or a plea to their heathen gods, she did not know.
Row, row, row.
She noticed that her own skin was glowing now, a warm shade of bronze in the gathering dark. The final cascade would be here soon.
Gently down the stream.
What was a stream? What was a boat? She repeated the song, light and airy and utterly without meaning. It was comforting to sing, even if the words themselves had been lost to time and to the endless, bitter march of a war that consumed everything.
Everything except her.
For now.
Merrily, merrily.
She could feel it now, the approach of the weapon. It came to her like a falcon to her wrist. There was no escape, but that didn’t bother her. There was nothing left to do, anyway. Nothing to see. Nothing.
Life is but a dream.
That part she understood. She felt it deep in her incandescent bones. In her very soul, if there was such a thing. Life was a dream, a flicker of images and sensations that vanished without a trace.
She could feel it now, the gentle weight of the final cascade as it descended upon her. Maybe it all was a dream. Maybe she would wake up somewhere else, someone else. Maybe she wouldn’t remember any of this. That was a nice thought.
She surrendered to the pull and allowed herself to disintegrate. She would be carried off like dust in the wind, intermingled with the dust of bones, of armor and transmitters, flecks of wood and droplets of fog. It would all be swept clean, like a dream by the clear light of morning, and the fight would be over.
