The Tale of Daisy and Heath

Once when autumn has fallen and winter arrived, no one felt the change of season the way it should feel as it was all our emotions went cold not just our bodies. That season it was a war that pierced the hearts when ignorance and power burned innocent people's houses to the ground. Destroyed the objects of livelihood, crushed the dreams of young minds before they could be more than pollen of flowers. Turned a community of happy faces into a dump yard, imprisoned lives in the cage of abandonment, loneliness, and fear with no address of hope. That season changed people into zombies who now know they were no longer alive yet were walking on the streets of horror alongside the burned houses that used to be their homes. The home for the people of La Woodsci town has gone forever now.

But if we humans are loyal to our species and stick to humankind, we always come back stronger. The people of La Woodsci town grew up listening to the stories of the famous La Woodsci battle in 1900 that lasted more than a decade and finally the battle was over when the warriors lost the sense of the ulterior purpose of the war and gradually began to succumb to their emotional injuries. The distant memory of love, family, and empathy made both enemies agree to make this land an epitome of harmony and peace where our children will know only love and community hood but, on the condition, no one will ever intervene in their territorial business from either party. Since that day the town only spread the aroma of love, harmony, and peace. They build a community of happy faces and celebrated once every year to remind themselves what the famous battle of La Woodsci has taught them.

Now when the homes of La Woodsci people turned into ashes, left them homeless. The military came to the rescue and shifted these people to a refugee camp located in the cantonment. They all saw each other's faces again and this time they weren't happy but scared, sad, and dull. They knew from now on it is their shelter until they figure out their devastating life which has been shattered into a million pieces. They must live with this pain that will smolder for years. A community that builds on the foundation of love and trust doesn't break apart easily, the place doesn't matter be it in a town like La Woodsci or any refugee camp provided by the military. People were beginning to gather themselves again, learning, teaching, and living again. They seemed happy in a long time, the community of happy faces.

It was snowing that day; snowfall is always magical. How everything turns into a color of peace, the brightness, and calmness of peace were needed on this burning land that not only set the houses on fire but the soul of people who lived there and it was not any less than a third-degree burn. The first snowfall of this catastrophic season will cool down some of the burns probably, that thought made me happy, and the fact that I can build a snowman. I was reminiscing about the life I had to leave behind, the dreams I saw in my burned house, and my entire life turned into ashes in seconds, and it won't rise from ashes like a Phoenix ever. But I am happy that I'm here with my loved ones and my parents and that's what matters and the poetries I carried with me. I smiled and turned the page to read another love poem "After a great pain, a formal feeling comes" by Emily Dickinson.

I love poetries; let me help see the atrocities of life from a less broken window. Heals my wounds, emotional ones. It has the ingredients of recovery and hope. I immerse in poetry but not as much that I will fail to notice his strong presence, Heath's presence. How surreal it is that while snowing when I was reading poetry, then there comes a man who fight for his country, and I fell in love with him at first sight. I was smitten by his courage, confidence, and smile. He has this lion-like demeanor that fears nothing and stands tall in every storm. I watched him every day patrolling while my reading sessions and he took care of me like everybody else and smiled sometimes too when we used to have accidental eye contact.

I learned to love him in infinite possible ways every single day, the more I fell for him the more I was able to untangle the abstractness of poetries. It all made sense to me and filled me with immense happiness. Since I was from the land of love, and recent episodes of violence and war taught me that tomorrow can never guarantee a life full of orchids and roses, could be a bed of thorns too. So why wait? I decided to tell him how I feel about him and wrote a letter, the next morning as usual I sat on the blue bench kept near the fencing and began reading poetry. I was a little nervous yet calm as I was not in rush for answers. At the same time as always, he came for patrol and looked at me. I finished reading love poetry to gather the courage to surrender myself to love. I walked up to him and stood quiet five feet apart, waiting for him to finish his talk with a fellow officer. His attention caught me, he had this 'I didn't expect this' expression on his face, it was the first that I came to talk to him, he excused himself from the ongoing conversation and walked with me. He asked, 'What is it, Daisy?' Oh! My goodness. He knows my name (I thought) and blushed in my heart, in absolute silence. I looked around and opened the bookmarked page where I kept the letter and then gave it to him.

He asked me in surprise, again 'What is it, Daisy?' I confessed my feelings and asked him to read the letter. He looked at me for a while, then gently opened the letter and read in silence. I was trying to read his expressions while he was reading my love letter. I wasn't expecting anything in return but wanted to decode the encoded language of expressions on human faces when they feed on the most fragile corner of emotional food. I waited breathlessly, stuck on his firm face, and chiseled jawline. The moment he finished feeding on my feelings on paper, he took a nice deep breath like he felt neatly better, folded the letter gently the way it was, and gave it back to me by placing the letter in the palm of my hand. I don't know what it means besides he touched me for the very first time. The complex touch of love, trembling in fear of uncertainty. He took my name gracefully and with pride, I could feel that but there was something else that I couldn't understand yet, and there it came to the answer. With pity and calm annoyance in his voice, he tore my feelings without tearing the letter apart. He meticulously rejected my love for him by saying "Action speaks louder than words." Like a gentleman, he held his stance firm and in control, no more words came out as he was a man of few words and many actions like a true soldier. I was wise to not expect the wishful answer, the love in return, I was happy on my part by surrendering myself to love. Hence, I looked into his cold eyes for a long minute, letting him read the poetries I carried in them, smiled, and then walked away.

A year later, when autumn has fallen and winter arrived, I am laying on my couch with my typewriter, typing words while occasionally looking at the hearth on the opposite. The flames remind me of him, the warm aura of a lion. I like the warmth inside the house while it is cold outside, this house I am trying to create new memories in, a new start from scratch, to build a new life with my loved ones. As usual, I was lost in my thoughts while bleeding words on paper as writing has been my best friend and before I could realize the friendship escalated to a level where we became soulmates.

It's snowing today, but this season it's not only the day of peace but also the magic of love. It's Christmas eve! I decorated my Christmas tree and kept it next to the fireplace I could see from the couch while writing. I sipped wine and took a bite of rum cake as I believe everybody deserves a treat when it's a festival. I began typing and then suddenly there was a knock at my door, I stopped typing and focused on the bell, thinking who this time could be there as I didn't invite anyone, and my family is out for dinner and wouldn't come back before midnight then who could be. I looked at myself in the mirror, adjusted my messed-up hair a bit, kept the red cap on my head, and then walked up to the door, and opened it.

I saw a man standing right in front of me, who has this lion-like demeanor. He was holding a book in his hand and his heart was pounding I could tell. 'Heath' – I said looking at him. It was the man I fell for. He had some snow on his clothes, especially on his shoulder area, he looked firm like always. There was something about him different this time that I couldn't decode yet. He said, 'If only I could read this before, I would know that victory alone isn't capable enough to bring peace in one's life. It's no redemption of any kind, it's half-filled always.' Oh! That was the sense of realization this time that made him glow differently (I thought). I looked into his moist eyes for a few long minutes and smiled.

The soldier I fell in love with, who rejected my feelings by saying, "Action speaks louder than words" is now my husband because he realized when he was on the battlefield fighting the new battles of La Woodsci after I was long gone from the refugee camp. He was there fighting for the homeless people and his country by eliminating humans that turned into threats, radicals, and poison for society. To keep the peace of the country and people's hope intact, bloodshed is not a choice but a necessity. Amid war, while he was all in action with bullets and guns; somewhere a poet was crafting a weapon to win emotional wars. A weapon of words. The louder the better because he has another war to win once the battle for the country was over, words that will heal his wound that is a constant side effect of his moral actions. Now he knows "Words are the most powerful weapon" and I'm the curator of words whom he fell in love with and eventually became his favorite writer.

His actions and my words fought side by side the modern battles of the Famous La Woodsci and build it from scratch on the foundation of love and peace like it was always before. The community of happy faces, the people of La Woodsci town who found their homes in new woods and concretes. It took years to build La Woodsci town and gave the address of hope to the people of this town again. These people aren't afraid of wars anymore as they are always prepared to build a world filled with love and love only, let many wars come.

From now on the tale of Daisy and Heath will also ring bells when the famous battle of La Woodsci will be told.