Chapter Two - Patriots

Aristide of Firewright

 Chapter Two

 

Written by: Arash Mashhadi

Illustrations by: Parmida Vahdatnia

Edited by: Selva Safineh

Story by: Arash & Parmida

 

CHAPTER TWO

Patriots

 

  For the first time in a while, Aristide felt like he had a family again.

  Not that he didn’t enjoy his time with his Pa, but he felt like he had to be something that he was not to have any conversation with him.

  That, however, was not the case with Philo in the house.

  As the owls started hooting under the pale moonlight, Aristide laid on his bed with a stomach full of buttered chicken, and a mind empty of anxious thoughts. He started digging in his right pocket, to get the wooden figure out, a habit he had developed over time. 

  Although he had closed the door behind him, Aristide could hear Pa and Philo talk in the small living room. They used to smoke and discuss events in the village. Crops and harvest, the weather, and the news of the war. All of which worked as the most efficient lullaby known to humanity for Aristide. Tonight, the discussion seemed different.

  “How about Mister Packtel’s daughter?” Pa said. “She’s a fine young lady.”

  “I’m not in the mood for this again,” said Philo.

  “You’re a war hero, Philo. You’re a strong man and you—”

  “I’m a cripple.”

  Moments of silence lingered between them.

  “You defeated the Purhassi in battle. You should be proud of that,” Pa said.

  “I don’t know why they retreated in such a hurry,” Philo said, in a mysterious tone. “They had the machinery advantage, more men, and they almost won. And— they have nothing to go back to.”

  “What do you mean, nothing to go back to?”

  “The ice storms in Purhass are ruining all their harvest.”

  “It’s not about numbers, technique, or harvest. It’s about honour and faith,” Pa said all-knowingly.

  “Their children are dying out of hunger. The Purhassi are fighting for a cause too,” said Philo, with a sigh. “Besides, there’s nothing honourable on a battlefield.”

  The discussion had gotten boring again for Aristide, so he closed his eyes and his fists even tighter, around the wooden statue of his mom.

***

  In the morning, Aristide woke up to the sound of metal objects clanking onto the kitchen floor. He got off his bed, went to the kitchen, and saw Philo, trying to cook.

  “Ah—darn—Good morning Ari,” said Philo.

  The frying pan was on the floor, along with the eggs and some spilled oil.

  “Good morning,” Aristide said, not minding the mess at first.

  “Dad went to the steel factory to deliver wood and I was trying to make breakfast for us. I guess I’m more of a cripple than I thought.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll make some more.”

  Aristide picked up a towel and used it to absorb the oil on the floor and put the fried eggs in the trash. He quickly cracked some eggs into a clean pan and started cooking.

  “You’ve grown up,” said Philo, observing.

  “That’s what old people do? Crack eggs?”

  “Lots of eggs,” said Philo. “Do you want to grow old?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Why is that? I thought kids wanted to remain kids forever.”

  “I want to go to other places. Like you went to war. Not necessarily war but I want to see what the world looks like outside of Firewright.”

  Philo took a moment to think about it.

  “I was like that too,” said Philo with a sigh. “I wanted to explore.”

  “You don’t want to explore anymore?”

  “I don’t know what I want anymore.”

Aristide picked up the frying pan and put it on the table, and they both sat at the table.

  “Dad wants you to marry, right?” Aristide said.

  Philo laughed about it. “He does. He wants me to settle down. I don’t think I’m that kind of a guy.”

  “What kind?” asked Aristide. “The marrying kind?”

  “Yeah. And besides, I can’t bring my problems to anyone else. I’d torture my wife and any supposed children."

  “You wouldn’t be any worse than Pa.”

  Philo laughed again, “I guess you’re right. It’s just with ageing, Ari, I feel the toll it’s taking on my body. I could beat four people at the same time, but now my body feels like a mashed potato.”

  “You can fight with four people at the same time?” Aristide said with a surprise. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Well, I already did it. But it was a while ago. I had two eyes and nothing ached in my body as it does now.”

  In the midst of his talking, the frying pan started to shake on the table. Then the table itself started shaking… and then the entire house.

  WHOOM…

  They both felt it and got up.

  “What is… that?” asked Aristide.

  “It’s not good, whatever it is,” said Philo as he wrapped his healthy hand around Aristide’s shoulder and kept him close.

  The ground shook. The windows shattered and a screeching noise came over Firewright. It sounded like a million seagulls screaming at the same time.

  Philo quickly put Aristide over his shoulders before he could say anything and ran out of the house.

  The air looked dark and foggy.

  Other residents were outside their homes too. No one said anything. Nobody screamed.

  They were all looking up. Aristide and Philo followed their looks— at the giant shape casting a large shadow all over Firewright.

 

  Philo and Aristide looked up as well, and they couldn’t believe what they saw.

  It was a ship, like the ones on the sea—but flying. It had a large balloon strapped on top of it and was nearly the size of Firewright.

  “A flying boat?” asked Aristide.

  “A flying— city,” said Philo. “That’s why they retreated.”

  On top of the airship waved the Purhassi flag in the wind, victoriously and ominously.

  “What is this madness?” cried a man.

  “Lord have mercy on us. It's his wrath!” a woman shouted.

  “It's a ship! Their ships can fly!” another man said.

  Out of the airship came out steel pipes, facing the town. There were two rows of them at each side of the ship. Six hundred of them.

  “What are those?” asked Aristide.

  “I think…” Philo paused. “Cannons.”

The cannons on the ship started slowly moving upwards… towards the steel factory on top of Firewright.

  “Pa…” murmured Aristide in Philo’s ear.

  “They won’t sh—"

  But they did. Everyone gasped as each of the cannons fired a shot at the factory. All six hundred balls blazing in blue light as they landed on the steel factory…

  And melted it down.

  Only then did the people start screaming. Each one of them started running in a different direction. The swarm of the crowd hit Philo and Aristide lost his balance and fell off on the ground. He quickly put his head between his hands as people began kicking him. He tried to crawl between all the legs stomping and running away, without seeing where he was going. He kept crawling on the stone pavements and felt a sting with each impact the edges of the stones made on his forearms. But suddenly, the ground stopped stinging, and Aristide felt like he fell through the ground and into running water.

  Splash!

  Everything became dark and Aristide suddenly had no sight … and no air.

  He realized he was underwater. He reached out his hand and luckily, found a solid metal object to hold onto.

  He pushed his weight upwards and came out of the running water.

  Everything around him smelled nasty. Aristide couldn’t understand what had happened until he looked upwards, where a tiny bit of light was coming from.

  He had fallen into the third open manhole in the street. The rest of the people were still running, shouting, and screaming.

  “Philo! Philo! I fell here!” he shouted. “Philo! I’m down here!”

  The running water kept pushing Aristide away and silenced his words.

  “Philo! I can’t hold on much longer!” he cried. “I’m slipping!”

  His tiny fingers were now pale due to the pressure of holding his weight. They slowly got loose and he had to let go.

  Aristide closed his eyes as he travelled with the stream of the sewage water downstream. All the yells and cries on the surface were getting distanced by each second.

  He tried to imagine which manhole he was passing under. The town was built on a very tall hill so he was going down all the time. The cold water around him made his body numb. He couldn’t feel his feet or hands anymore. He thought that’s how death is. Slowly losing feeling in your body. He sensed light ahead of him behind his closed eyes, so he opened them.

  The end of the sewer tunnel was ahead of him and the water was taking him to it. He tried his best to make his body into a ball when got flung into the air and dropped into a puddle of nasty and brown water.

  Blip.

  The water wasn’t very deep, and there was mud underneath him.

  The pain was spiking in his back, and he still hadn’t regained feeling in his legs and arms, so he laid in the water where he had fallen.

  With his ears in the water, every noise was muffled.

  He slowly sat up as he felt like he could. Gunshots and screaming was all one could hear from the town.

  He turned to look at Firewright, now behind him.

  The steel factory with all its previous glory was now cracking and melting down in big black smoke and blazing red fire.

  He could barely recognize his hometown.

  Then, something happened to make things even stranger.

  Around two hundred soldiers started jumping down from the airship, parachuting their way down.

  They looked like mechanical bugs, with their gas masks and huge armours, slowly making the sky entirely black as they landed on the town below.

  Aristide took a deep breath to calm himself down. They couldn’t see him from that high up. And then, he tried to think of a plan. Nothing too advanced or in the future, just something to keep his mind from thinking about the horrible things that had happened to him that day.

  “Always hide in a safe spot, gather your thoughts, and form a plan,” Philo’s words echoed in his head.

  Aristide turned and marched towards the large woods surrounding the town. At least he recognized the forest, for now.