Fields of Green

-an American pastoral-

The radio sputtered:

...have declared in no uncertain terms the end of this righteous conflict. Victory has been hard earned, but it is victory, indeed. Oh sweet victory! Our years of toil show forth their abundant harvest on this God-given day. This most glorious day! The day of salvation has arrived, and nigh lies our resurrection. May God bless you and may God bless America for centuries to come.

The birds, startled by the cheers that rang out, shot themselves upward, pluming into the sky.

2nd Lt. Riley of Leesburg, GA and his brothers-in-arms ran through camp with reckless abandon. Their tears blurring the faces of whoever they were hugging, shaking hands and jumping with. From their perch on Kennesaw Mountaint, the wisps of smoke rising from the half ruins of “the city in the forest” were now barely visible.

A while later, Riley collapsed under the weight of relief against an old hickory tree, the whole mountain buzzing with cicadas, and began rummaging through his pack for objects of reminiscence, forced to look at his past now that a future was possible.

He had knick-knacks and souvenirs and war trophies, but the only thing that had made it through the war since the beginning was a baseball that his daddy--KIA in the Battle of Macon--had given him before he had left to fight.

"Bring it home, son," he had said. "America's still gonna need a pastime when this shit show is finally over. I love you, boy."

He laughed sadly. His daddy hadn't even been that big a fan of baseball, but he’d insisted they play catch every chance they got.

"Gordy, come here. Bring a machete."

"What's up, boss?"

He and Gordy had grown up together, played ball together, went to war together, survived together. Brother from another mother.

"We're gonna make some bats."

With a couple makeshift bats hacked out of limbs, he called his platoon together. Even in their first hours of peace, they were still tight. Battle-ready, naturally so.

"Alright, boys. Time to celebrate properly. I know a lot of yall ain't from here, but at the bottom of this mountain is an old tourist center, bombed to shit, and next to it is a field, also bombed to shit," they laughed, after almost a decade of war, they could still laugh, "and that field is where we kicked those Yankee asses back to their Jew Bagels during the war of Northern Aggression. It also where we are going now."

"You lost the war, Lieutenant!"

"Kirky, that war was just a battle to prepare for the real war. I'm playing, but I'm not. Fuck this war. Boys, let's go play some ball!"

They jogged down together in formation, like they hadn't since boot camp. They had all seen enough movies to know what, at least that part of war looked like, but from the beginning, it had been a guerilla war, a generation of boys raised on hearing of insurgency and jihad and IEDs. It had come more naturally than might have been expected, or maybe in some ways even desired; it was what it was.

The field was only half bombed to shit, and it didn't seem as big as when Riley was young, just a couple hundred yards of upended dirt and yellowing grass, but tufts of green fought through all over.

"We've got two squads here. That, gentlemen, is divine will. I have no doubt, Christ himself, and those we have lost before, will be watching this game. I'll pitch."

"Figured you as the catching type, Coach Lieutenant."

"You're about to catch this ball upside your head."

The squads divided off, the shade of a few hickory trees acting as the dugout with approximations serving the rest of the field.

"Swing, batter, batter, batter."

"STRIKE ONE!"

"Could you swing a little harder next time? I could use some more of that breeze."

"Point it out like Babe Ruth used to.”

"Whose Babe Ruth?"

"Shut up, Zoomer."

"STRIKE TWO!"

"K!"

"You're killing me, Smalls!”

“0-2 count.”

"The pitch!"

CRACK

A second round of cheers sounded at a straight shot toward centerfield, way-way back, and 2nd Lt. Riley could've sworn that ball hung there, up high in a perfectly blue sky, a beautiful, distant and hot white, and when it came back down, when everything was settled, it would land on a field of green.

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