Day 123 Writing Short Stories

Fathers And Sons

The snow-covered fields were dotted with the black and white trees that towered over the landscape. The men pressed down against the cold, waiting, searching. Fear had settled in their minds—an occupier, a constant reminder of the consequences of chance and mistakes. Their only salvation was the white clothes, the gun pressed against them, and the skis strapped to their boots.

Wars were never meant to be this silent. Wars were made to roar. But here in the snow, under the birch trees, no mortars pierced the silence. Silence was all he and his men got: silence and fear. Somewhere there, the men in gray searched for them. Their long woolen coats tangled with the crust, and their boots pressed deep into the snow. The patrol full of the demons of the night and day, Ryssä, Iivana, hated and feared.

He slowly chewed his tobacco to keep him glued to the snowy ground, glued to waiting, to be patient. Iivanas would come. They always came. Then, they would push behind the enemy lines to sabotage the Jesus out of them.

Lauri knocked his shoulder; he followed his gaze and saw the frozen demons. The unit was crawling under the birch trees, searching for them, fearing the White Death himself. Chukhna passed from Russian lip to lip.

He kept his fingers up, commanding his unit to wait, to see that the whole patrol was there before he gave the command to shoot. He gave the sign. And after the first Iivana was gunned down, the others dropped deep into the snow. Their gray clothes like beacons in the white.

His men killed them all. When the silence once again took over the snowy valley, they skied to the dead. To the boys not older than the sons he had in this war. Too young to understand. Too young to play mercenaries of Death.

He had to look away, seeing his own sons’ faces in them. Both alive by some miracle, not his.

And behind it all, somewhere in the darkening night, he saw the figures that always hung around the battlefields. The creatures of shadow and bones. The spirits of the ancient Finns. The devils older than Christianity. He shuddered and took his men behind the enemy lines. One day, those devils would be there for him, and he wasn’t sure where they would drag men like him, men who had killed fathers and sons.

—

I was pretty sure I couldn’t write anything with what I got. I got a voice-driven historical fiction tragedy, written in the objective third person. Then, my thoughts turned to the Winter War, and something of a story took shape. Both of my grandfathers fought in the Second World War. My father’s father was captured at the end of the war and taken to the Russian prison camps. He refused to speak about the war. What I know is that he took missions behind enemy lines. I have no clue what my mother’s father did. He was in the top brass; that’s all I know. War was never glorified in my family. It was seen as something that needed to be done, but never to be repeated. They never said nasty things about the Russians or passed on hatred of them.

I wanted to write the devils in the end to give it a twist I like. Finns have this ancient folk concept of Piru. Not to be mixed with the Christian Devil. It’s a spirit of the forest. Its origin and meaning are unknown, but it’s most likely more of a trickster-type being than something that embodies the evils of the world.

Thank you for reading! Have a mystical day, and see you tomorrow ❤