“Ardour”
The deafening roar of the engine drowned out the howling inside my head as my wheels left the soil, beginning my ascent. With every moment, the place I once called home hurtled behind me in a gradual blur. The cold air violently rushed into my cockpit and flung my tears backwards in a stream, my tears that wouldn’t dry. The rising sun crushed my shoulders into the cockpit, yet I could feel my soul pulling me back towards the shore. In the vast upper atmosphere, where there is no oxygen, there is only death; yet the enduring bright disk of the sun which coiled around the earth, appeared to be beyond death. Only as the airfield began to shrink into a tiny dot below me, did the profound and sublime vastness of the ocean reveal itself to me. I felt as though I had now become one with the machine, my soul suddenly turning into a blank slate.
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As the rumble of war began to shake my plane, I felt a stark and unbearable loneliness among the clouds. The pure terror of death, that I frantically tried to strangle, hurled into my consciousness. Images of home and the faces of my loved ones rampantly formed in my mind against my will. A desperate and frail smile twitched upon my face as tragic tears flooded down my face against that very smile. In the distance I spotted the target, my vaulting heart was exploding in my trembling chest as my hands shook vigorously on the yoke. Only now, I was forced to face the realisation that I was no machine, I was a boy trapped inside a capsule of war. The uncertainty was intolerable. As my impending descent into the target began, I hysterically slammed into the throttle with all my vigour. The sheer momentum ruthlessly flung me back into the seat, forcing my eyes, red with sorrow, to be grasped by the spectacle in front of me. I couldn’t blink, not even for a single moment, my eyes had to be wide open. As I approached the target, the blood drained from my face and my heart was in my throat. The blisteringly hot oil of the engine streaked against my face – emulsifying my cold tears. The target rapidly increased in size as I accelerated further, causing my plane to convulse more and more. However, in the single moment once the target was the only thing that I could see, for the first and final time, my life made absolute sense.
Like a bullet of flesh, destined to die. The total impact was made. My plane vaporised into an explosion of war and fire, leaving only the ardour of my will to remain.
Vilmanis Agon
