Bone War - A Short Story

Written in 2020 (1,225 words) | Rewritten in 2024 (2,917 words)

The story you are about to read is a “vomit draft.” This means that it is in its rawest form of writing and has no professional editing done whatsoever. But I welcome any corrections, grammatical or otherwise, you may find.

War is brutal on everyone and no one more so than the family of those lost in battle. Our war has gone on for a long time. Families with three generations of children can scarcely remember how it started or what is needed to end it. In the early days, when I was just a lad, but old enough to know when adults around me were talking of serious things, they referred to it as the Hades War. It was no secret that underground tunnels were being built right under our very noses for centuries. But now this secret network had come to light and discussions over who owned them and therefore had the right to make money from public use went from civil to war practically overnight. My parent’s split over the issue. My father felt we should leave well enough alone. The government knows best and who are we to meddle into their affairs. “Aren’t we doing alright?” The cry in his voice the night my mother threw him out broke me. That was the first and the last time I shed a tear.

By my teenage years, just before I became a man, able to make my own way in the world, the war was no longer over the network of tunnels but over the land above them. Entire nations lived in the tunnels but were considered outsiders to the rest of us Sun Dwellers, as we were called. I was rather fond of the Sun Seekers, as those who lived underground were called and was proud to say I had a few friends from there. Though I could never tell my mother. She was arrested shortly after my father left, for crimes against the government. To her the government were a bunch of no good liars, keeping this secret from us for so long. “What else might they be keeping from us?” Her questions, like the Hades War, went from dinner table conversations to government office infiltration. My father raised me from that moment forward.

I’d like to say I fought in the war, but that path wasn’t my destiny. While my friends all went to war proudly, I was forced to stay behind. Oh, didn’t I mention? I’m blind. So, you see, to me, whether living underground as a Sun Seeker or above as a Sun Dweller, it made very little difference to me. And perhaps that’s why I was chosen.

Ah, yes, that word. Chosen sounds so…significant and permanent. Believe me, it is neither. I may be skipping ahead in my story but I’m sure you have better things to do than listen to an old man reminisce all day. I’m sure you have questions too. Starting with my house. And I’ll get to that. Building a house made entirely out of bones was not easy believe you me.

In fact, the first bone I ever received, is right over there on the mantel above the fireplace. I keep it there as a reminder of the immense responsibility it is to be the collector. It’s a job I never take lightly. Do me a favor, love, and bring it here. These knees just aren’t what they used to be so when I’m seated, I can be here for ages before I’ll get up again.

Ah yes, just feel the weight and smooth edges. Why, this bone has to be about…not let me see…going on nearly eighty years old! HA! Me oh my. We better put that back before it disintegrates in our hands!

That bone was given to me by a mother, the day after a battle, searching for whatever may be left of her son. Even though I couldn’t fight in the war doesn’t mean I played no role. What I lacked in sight I made up for with my sense of smell and hearing. To this day, I can tell you what you ate before you came here. Shall I try? Don’t worry I’m only kidding. But I still got it.

Anyway, I helped find bodies of the fallen soldiers so they could be brought home and given a proper burial. I did this for both sides. No matter how ugly the war got, when it came to the dead, that was one thing everyone could agree on; they must be treated with the utmost respect.

I helped that woman find her son. Or at least what was left of him. One great thing about being blind on the battlefield is never really knowing the depth of devastation surrounding me. But in her absolute lowest she asked a favor of me. That favor led to my current calling. She asked me to cremate her son right where he lay. Unorthodox to say the least but I learned it was best to honor the wishes of the living, especially when they are grieving the dead.

I set to work making a fire with her assistance. We warmed ourselves by the fire as the sun set over us. Others who were looking for their loved ones joined us. The woman told me stories about her son when he was a little boy; her little boy. She cried and other mothers cried. I didn’t cry.

When the fire died down and it was decided to just put out the fire, leaving his ashes to blow in the wind, everyone around me gasped. One bone remained. Untouched by the flames. Impossible was a word whispered around me. The woman picked up her son’s last bone and handed it to me. I can still feel the weight of it as she pressed it into my hands and said, “remember my boy.” The choke in her voice was deafening.

It didn’t take long for word to get out about me. Others tried to replicate what I had done. Choosing to burn their loved ones, setting their soul free into the sky, but there was never a bone left behind. It only worked if I set the fire. It only worked if I was there, the guardian of the flame. That’s what the kids call me to this day you know.

Before I was the guardian of the flame I kept a garden. My father died of old age, as few men do what with this neverending war. But he had to stay home to keep watch over me. Sometimes I wonder if he appreciated me or resented me for that. While he was one of the few men seen around town while other men his age were doing something to assist in the war. I learned everything I know about gardening from him. He said it was the one part of his day that he truly cherished and appreciated. The one thing he had no control over. Nature was going to do what nature was going to do. It was fascinating! My fondest memories are of tending the garden with my father. I don’t live in my childhood home. I left those childish things behind. I am a gardener but not in the way you may think. It’s difficult to grow anything of beauty in a house made of death.

Which brings me to why you’re here, I’m sure. My house. It’s not every day I welcome someone into my home. In truth, no one comes visiting. I typically go to them. I keep odd hours, you see. You just never know when I’m needed. And ever since receiving that first bone, my services are required daily. Word got out and pretty soon I had mothers who lost their only son, wives who lost their husband, and even fathers who come to me preemptively as a way to ease the burden on their family. All of them asking me to remember their loved one. Each bone that you see before you, from the floor to the walls to the ceilings and yes, even the chair I am sitting on, made of their bones. So many stories. All of them true. All of them filled with such joy. All of them ending in tragedy.

It didn’t take long for my bone collection to outgrow the home I grew up in with my father. Also, I needed a place I could go to get away from the needs of others. So, I took my bones and I decided to use them to build this house. It was not easy, but the time spent reminded me of my youth, gardening with my father. Nature will do what nature will do. This house has good bones.

What’s that? Oh, you notice my bookshelves. I was wondering when you’d bring them up. Well, these are my journals. At my advanced age I worry that I may forget the stories told to me. After all, I’m not immortal. Just because I have this gift, everyone seems to think I’ll just be here forever. Tending to their damned war, listening to their damn stories, standing over their damn – Sorry…It’s been a long day. Where was I? Oh yes, my journals. Let me explain.

After about a year or so of doing this ritual where I burn the bodies of the fallen leaving behind one of their bones that I’m then gifted by their loved one, I noticed it was having a profound effect on me. I won’t tell anyone just in case they begin to idolize me even more than they already do, but I think I can trust you. I started getting some, but not all, of my sight back. Imagine that! It’s not perfect, mind you. Perhaps nothing a pair of glasses wouldn’t cure, but I’m not one to mess with what nature intended. So, with a little squinting and moving closer, when necessary, I can see what I need to see. And right now, all I need to see is the blank page so I can write down everything that is told to me day-by-day.

I call them my Bone War Diaries. Pick up any one and it will contain stories that might make your hairs stand on end. Or make you weep in ways you didn’t know possible. I’m no poet, I just write the stories exactly as they were told to me, but, and here’s the strange part, you’re not the first person to visit my home recently. In fact, a young woman, early twenties perhaps, came knocking on my door on a day not unlike today. Sunny. A cool breeze. I don’t get many visitors. I tend to go where the battles have just happened and use my gift when needed. So, the knock, as you would imagine, startled me.

I thought, rather stupidly, that she wanted my services. I heard on the radio of a battle happening only a day’s journey from here and I had already planned to make the trip the following morning. It wasn’t until I saw the bone sticking out from her satchel that I knew this visit was something else entirely.

I ushered her inside so she could warm herself by the fire I had just started. She didn’t say a word, only watched me as I brought out two cups and a pot of hot water for some tea. We sat together in silence, watching the flames flicker.

“Are you alone?” she asked. Her voice so soft as if she’d never spoken before.

“I am, yes.”

“Are you sad, being alone?”

No one had ever asked me that before. When I’m at a burning I say very little. I’m not angry about this, don’t get me wrong. They are grieving after all and I’m sure asking me about myself just doesn’t cross their minds in the moment. Also, I had grown to be a rather private person. My way of getting back at the world for insisting I care about others in such a visceral and real way while no one even bothered to see how I was doing through all of this. I was just expected to perform. Expected to receive. To listen. To remember. But on this day I found myself, for the first time, at a loss for words.

“I am alone now,” she continued, not waiting for my answer. “It was just us. Me and my younger brother. Now it’s just me.” She shifted her nap sack from her back and set it on the floor between her legs. A tear fell from her cheek as she looked down at the bone of her brother. She wiped what tears she had left, took a deep breath and looked around the house, noticing it for the first time.

“How old was he?” I asked. I’ve learned over the years that all it takes is a simple question to get them started and pretty soon the floodgates open and it all spills out. The faster they got to say what they needed to say, the faster I could move on to the next person patiently waiting their turn for my services. It’s not that I didn’t want to hear the story of this young woman’s brother, I just wasn’t used to having one told to me in my own house and under such strange circumstances. For starters, that bone she carried wasn’t one of mine. Loved ones don’t usually keep the bone that’s left behind, they feel it will taint the magic that happens, and my abilities will be lost. The one time they look out for me. Whatever happens, I must never lose the ability to collect bones.

“My brother? He was only sixteen.” My expression gave me away and she continued, “The war has taken so many lives as I’m sure you know already. It has become necessary for the younger ones to fight, too. At least, that’s what my brother and I were told when they came and took him.” She turned her face away, but I could see her wiping away tears.

“I hate the war,” I said. It was my first time expressing an honest opinion to another human being who wasn’t my father. “It’s the reason why I am alone.” She looked at me with red swollen eyes and my heart broke for her. “It broke up my mother and father when I was just a boy.” Her eyes widened. She hadn’t grasped just how old this damn war had been going on for. “Then this happened to me,” I said and motioned to the house we were sitting in, pointing out the obvious. “But I had no idea they started recruiting much younger. Surely, if you only had each other, he should’ve been spared.”

She stared daggers at me just then. “What do you care? Just another body for the bone collector to burn.” Her words stung but I could tell she needed to say them. It’s rare but it does happen, where a loved one is angry about the war and what it took from them. Sometimes they might even point their anger at me and the job I do. How morbid it all must be and how I can sleep at night. In those moments I want to shout back at them. Tell them that I don’t sleep at night. I’m lucky if I get thirty minutes rest at a time. How could I possibly be expected to exist when I have thousands of souls expecting me to remember them and thousands more to come! How!

She slowly removed her brother’s bone from her sack and held it out to me. I took it, preparing myself for its weight but it seemed almost weightless. I examined it closely and hoped she didn’t find this odd, but I couldn’t help it.

“How?” I asked her, but part of me knew how already. I was getting on in years and as my father always said; nature is going to do what nature is going to do. I knew being a bone collector wouldn’t be forever. It couldn’t be. I am only human after all. But I found out about my gift on the battlefield. I didn’t learn it by burning my own loved one the way she burned her brother.

“Where should we put him?” she asked. She had a curiosity about her that reminded me a lot of myself when I was her age. She looked at me but not with hatred anymore. She knew why she was here even before I did and now, she was ready to learn. I had no teacher but she has one now.

“I don’t know. I like to spend more time studying each one I’m given before I make my decision.” I could see her scanning the four corners of the room and I have to admit, her curiosity had gotten to me. “Where would you put him?” I asked her.

She stood up and walked over to the fireplace, admiring the mantel. She put her hand on the bone in the center and turned to me. “Your first?” she asked.

My jaw dropped. “How did you know?”

“It’s where I would put my first. Someplace where I can see it, admire it, from anywhere in the house.” And she was right. That was exactly why I placed it there. “If it’s alright with you, I think I’m going to stay. I want you to teach me.” She placed her brother’s bone down in front of the first one I’d ever received.

There was a long pause before I answered, “I don’t think I’d mind. Being alone together.”