At the peak of the turquoise side, a pile similar to a tower, with a moss color in a hazelnut shade – dark, dim reflection of green, passed through the shimmering of a warmed dark granite; under that, several rocks shone like purple and pink crystals. Where the slope descended into the plateau, the waves of the mountain river playfully foamed and in unpredictable showers hit the deep cut with a young meat color. Martin thought that a huge horse – greeny, hits his back with his snowy white tail, while he waits for his giant rider, so that he jumps in the saddle with the kidnapped fairy in his arms.
A deeply melancholic symphony echoed across that divine plane, endlessly, quietly; the shine of those milky ways woven from flowers, braided in the green waves of the grass web, changed in clear accords, with the extinguished, partially drawn shadows of the high lonely rocks, as if on a big wreath prepared for somebody who is not here yet, but he is expected to be brought any minute. Somewhere around, some quiet, hushed aura twinkled, turning the visible world into a higher existence.
Captain Franciscus Trakl sighed and in the end lied down in the flower beauty, as if lying down in a God’s hand.
… … … … … … … … … … … … … …
He was startled by some unclear premonition. There was deadly silence everywhere. The sun was still high and shone with that pleasant mountain warmth, that leaves the air fresh and light for breathing. His sharpened military instinct told him that something big was not right. He could simply smell the danger – and what he felt now was more than danger. The thought of the sunny area that surrenders itself to the twilight in the end of the day, just like the lamb surrenders itself to the knife. He felt that he was too far from his past, from everything that he remembered, everything he cared for. Captain Trakl realized that he controlled nothing anymore, that some decision had been made, that this decision was a verdict really, and that this verdict was irrevocable. And as if the hour for it to be executed had come.
That tissue of his soul – Europe! – quite disappeared from his deepest memories, it separated from him and became less real than any blade of grass in which he had dived, lying immobile, just awaken and still suddenly quite awake. As the yearning for woman, company, glass of cognac had disappeared. And although he could still touch and feel it, he knew that his own life was already far from him, that it was similar to a distant view, that we cover with our hand and hide it from us ourselves. The cover of the silent beauty had already fallen on him and his people, covering them and separating them from this world.
“The guards were killed!” He yelled this and clearly felt it at the same time, not knowing how he knew it! Martin jumped at captain’s words. Too late. Guns started shooting from all sides. Franciscus Trakl saw his men getting up, taken from their dream, and fell back in the thick grass, in the kofil and flowers, hit by the bullets that flew on all sides. He reached for his gun, got behind some thick bushes, and started watching. The rifles shot endlessly, but nobody of the attackers could be seen. The amphitheater, so convenient for sunbathing, now became a fatal trap along whose edges there were the invisible attackers. Trying to group, his men rose, ran for couple of steps, or not a single step, and they fell, fell like mowed, fell like harvested. The clearness of the meadow did not offer any cover, not a single shield. To get up her meant being a perfect target. Not to get up could mean that the last chance for another facing the world in a straight position and on one’s own feet was missed. For a moment, it was safer to lie down, but the situation demanded action, and not passive lying and waiting for the bullet of the invisible shooters to come.
A bit later, it became clear that neither could influence the final outcome. Trakl’s people could be heard less and less, only a shot here and there. The captain could recognize the guns of each of his soldiers based on their sounds. “This is Herman! This one now – Thomas! By the creek – that’s Marcelo! This must have been Verner!” Of course, he also shot. He was aware that his soldiers also knew the sound of his gun. A first class shooter, captain Franciscus Trakl carefully spent every shot. He mostly shot at those places where a minute ago he would see a little cloud of powder smoke, where, according to the logic of the configuration of the field, the attacker could hide. Only twice did he think that after his shot, the shooting from those places at which he had shot stopped immediately; the high thick grass hid the truth about whether he had also answered in the same way to some of the invisible snipers. Next to him, only couple of steps lower, only Martin Lupino remained, and he shot filling in his rifle quickly.
… … … … … … … … … … … … … …
At one moment he noticed how the dark figures quickly jumped out of the grass and changed their positions approaching closer and closer, already very deep inside their lines. Trakl pointed his officer’s binoculars to one of them who ran across the empty space at that moment. He wanted to be sure that he would hit him and waited that the man stop at his new position that he would precisely locate, and then shoot at a place in the grass where the attacker could hide from the eyes, but not from the bullet. He saw a sharp, dry face of a highlander, with thick moustache. His eyes or his expression did not show any rage, greed, or fierce need for battle, or the joy created by the desire for heroism. He shot running quickly, as if following an order, but not a usual military order, but more in a trance of calm determination. As if following an order obtained from the destiny, fate, as if on a mission given from the angel of doom personally.
Trakl lowered his binoculars and grabbed the gun. Nobody hates anybody here, he thought. It seemed that they were all together in a gravity field that determined their actions as the gravity determined the trail of a heavy rock that breaks, destroys and demolished everything in front of it, mute and speechless, not hating anybody and not caring for anybody’s destruction!
… … … … … … … … … … … … … …
The captain lowered his binoculars. That face, exposed only to the naked eye of Franciscus Trakl, looked too small and unexpectedly remote. The familiar strong urge of the hunter determined to get on his pray, so precious for the high breed warrior, completely overcame him.
He rose a bit above the grass line and shot. At the same moment, as the distant echo of his shot rang in his ears, captain Franciscus Trakl felt a hot blow in his chest, sudden warmth in his cheeks, a sound in his ears. And a very mild dizziness.
… … … … … … … … … … … … … …