Ad Astra Per Aspera [2] - Band of Brothers

19 | barriers

" When emotions become speechless, it is expressed only through tears."

- Shanmuga Priya

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Hazel had finally decided - she was in fact the hopeless baby bird she felt she were back in the hospital in France.

A baby bird who couldn't seem to get off its feet, remaining the runt it was, remaining that scared and frail being it had always been.

Because even if leaving Haguneau had left her heart looking for hope, nothing but dread arrived in her being when they slowly pulled closer to Mourmleon.

Hazel sat there stone faced. Every fiber in her body felt frozen, in an almost stagnant stance, as she thought about Bastogne and each and every horror that encompassed Bastogne. Hazel didn't knew if she could ever see that place again, where she had seen friends die, wounded and emotionless. She didn't know if she herself could face Bastogne in the way she thought.

Bad memories ingrained in her brain like clay.

Bad memories of her childhood, her youth, her bringing up in a high school where you were bullied for simply being the quiet girl that no one knew the name of.

This was another bad memory - one that sought out to play as if it were a movie in the cinema, that somber tune playing in the back.

Hazel's eyes briefly met the chained gates that lead to Mourmleon and her heart gave out an ache, thinking of men like Bill and Joe Toye or Buck and Hoobler or Skip and Penkala. It was a heart ache that would never cease to heal. It was an indescribable heart break of men you fought with who were your brothers, your family, who were now gone.

The gates that lead to Mourmelon were like a harsh reminder that many of the people who had entered Bastogne with them, were officially gone.

And it was like a stab in the chest.

Many faces portrayed relief, exhaustion, raw tears of realizing for the first time they would not have to worry about the Germans bombing them every night. There were many conflicting emotions that everyone felt pulling into the camp that once housed many soldiers who had now gone to the heavens above.

Hazel hopped off the truck that had brought them here, and felt powerless as her feet slowly brought her to walk inside the gates. She could vividly remember the call that had sent her out of those very gates, into the freezing cold of Bastogne and the Ardennes forest.

When Hazel's feet had started moving, it felt like a ghost were in her body, directing her towards the entrance to the gates, not her actual being. Hazel walked in alone, as most of the other guys and even Lizzie and Catherine walked in in front of her. Hazel felt the weight of the world on her shoulders.