NONE LISTEN

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Copyright: Sandra Crook

We’re gathered together today in an old farmhouse near a Civil War battlefield. Our hostess is the gracious and talented author and artist, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. We’re here to discuss our original stories for the week as the Friday Fictioneers. The challenge for this group is for each of us to write a story with no more than 100 words. It’s supposed to have a beginning, middle, end, and follow the picture prompt for the week. This week’s prompt was supplied by Sandra Crook. Thanks again, Sandra.

To read the other stories from the group members, just click on the little blue frog in the blue box.

The link for the other stories is as follows:

http://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2015/03/11/13-march-2015/

Genre: Speculative Fiction

Word Count: 100 Words

NONE LISTEN by P.S. Joshi

Nobody’s ever cared. I’ve tried to tell’em, but they don’t listen. It’s been so long. Why won’t they listen?

I was runnin’ across the field carryin’ my old gun, and somethin’ hit me. All I know after that is I saw my body layin’ on the ground near a big stump.

There was us boys in the gray and the boys in blue.

Some men from a nearby farmhouse buried us. They was talkin’ about a cemetary, but there’s never been one. This skirmish musta’ been forgotten. Looks like this is where we’ll stay buried. No one knows.

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Written Act of Kindness Award

54 thoughts on “NONE LISTEN”

    • Thanks, Bjorn. I’m glad you loved the ghost approach. I would bet there have been bodies buried from some of the smaller battles that have indeed not been found. They fought smaller battles in many places. — Suzanne

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  3. Dear Suzanne,

    The very earth is made of the dust of those gone before. None listen, no one knows and life goes on. We all have to learn the same lessons over and over again, too. I loved your story and the feeling it brought to the surface. Beautiful.

    Aloha,

    Doug

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    • Thanks, Doug. I’m so glad you loved the story. I’ve had some interest in the Civil War after visiting Gettysburg some years ago with my parents. I felt taken back in time there. I also read the book written about the TV movie. Thank you for the encouragement. Aloha to you also. 🙂 — Suzanne

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    • Thanks, Diana. I’m so glad you liked the story. I visited Gettysburg with my parents years ago and read about that battle. That was an especially terrible war as it pitted brother against brother. I feel sure many bodies were never moved to cemetaries. My dad was born in 1897 when there were still quite a few Civil War vets around. The last two died in the 50’s when I was in grade school. One was a southerner and one a northerner. — Suzanne

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  7. Sadly, when you think about the number of men that died in the Civil War that many had to be buried in mass graves. To me that is terribly sad because they don’t have a plot of earth to call their own.

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    • Thanks, Joy. Yes, it is sad. In those days where there were so many small battles, and it was harder to identify the dead, the important thing was to just bury them as soon as possible. I sometimes wonder how many grave markers in cemetaries are placed there just in memory when the body was never found. — Suzanne

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    • Thanks, Ali. Not only the wars, I saw on TV that they’re still digging up plague victims from the middle ages. There must me a great many from the wars. I’m glad you liked the point of view in my story. — Suzanne

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  10. That’s so well told! Civil (any) war is such a terrible thing and so many bodies lie forgotten. Richard III’s body has just been found, you probably know. Reburial soon!
    (Are war cemeteries simply propaganda vehicles for the victors? We don’t seem to honour the dead of ‘the other side’?)

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    • Thanks, Patrick. At Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the scene of a huge battle of the Civil War, there is a large cemetary with the bodies of both the northern dead and the southern dead. Abraham Lincoln, President at the time, gave a famous speech at the dedication, as you no doubt know. Such occasions probably are partly political, but that seems to go with the territory. I did read and see on TV the news of the finding of the body of Richard III. That was very interesting. It seemed some untrue myths had built up around him that were found to not be true. There were bitter feelings after the Civil War because of the way southerners were treated. General Sherman took troops and burned a path through part of the south. There’s still some hard feelings about that there. That war is still known in the South as the War for Southern Independance.— Suzanne

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      • Is that right? It’s the first time I’ve heard that term. unless you’re kidding. I had heard the term “The War for Southern Independence.” My son was raised in North Carolina and said once that he thought the southern states had every right to leave the union if they wanted to. 🙂

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  13. There are layers of ghosts in this story Suzanne – the narrator himself, the ghosts of the forgotten, the ghosts of battles lost in history, the ghosts of history that we would rather forget. And still a beautiful story, I felt an innocence to the narrator, a sense that he was a very young man.

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    • Thanks Siobhan. I just barley remember WWII and my mother speaking of “our boys.” It was literally true as many men who go to war are young. The Civil War was no exception. There were even children who were drummer boys in that war. The last veterans to die in the 1950’s had been drummer boys. I’m so glad you liked the story. — Suzanne

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  15. This is sad, beautiful, and also goes beyond your civil war. There are probably many of these unmarked, unknown graves from wars all over the worlld, through all times, and it’s still going on.

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  16. The point of view in your story works really well. How tragic that he is still so powerless and confused after death – so often ghosts in stories are blessed with powers and knowledge beyond those of the living.

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    • Thanks, Marg. I think he’s beginning to understand, but just doesn’t really want to totally accept the truth. Time is probably different for him than us. He just has a feeling it’s been a long time. — Suzanne

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  19. My father was a history teacher for years. As a child, he took me to Gettysburg and showed us the fields where battles were fought. He liked to say “if only these fields could talk, the stories they could tell…” Your story made me think of that.

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  23. Well done, Suzanne. I loved the point of view in this one. Somewhere there was a family waiting for this soldier to come home who probably never knew his fate. Very sad.

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    • Thanks, Russell. I’m so glad you liked the story, especially the point of view. You’re right, as in every war there are those called the “missing in action”, and no one knows what happened to them. It’s very sad.— Suzanne

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  24. Well done Suzanne, and such a different take on the prompt. There must be hundreds of bodies buried like this, with no markers and no-one to care for them.

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    • Thanks, Alicia. I’m so pleased you liked the story. The ghost is in a pleading mood, but is half resolved that things aren’t going to change since it’s been such a long time. — Suzanne

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