The First

The grass was green. That's the first thing Fred noticed when he jumped on his horse in the vast countryside. From his vantage point, he could witness his surroundings better than on his own two legs. Everything appeared as it was. The speed sharpened his senses.

"You're a centaur," his older sister would laugh as she watched him come in for supper every evening after his adventures further and further from their home.

Fred wished he didn't have to leave the saddle he found most comfortable, but the natural impulses of his stomach suggested otherwise.

"Anna, you know how much I love horses," he said during dinner.

"I have no doubts about that," she smiled.

"I thought it was the connection between myself and the horse, but the older I get the more I think it's a sense of adventure within."

"You really are our father's son," Anna said.

The wooden door swung open to a cold draft. "Is your sister trying to tarnish my name?" a gray-haired figure said with a grave tone that matched his facial expression. Silence for a moment, before the father cracked a big smile and brushed his son's hair. "How can you tarnish something that's already covered with horseshit?"

"Henry!" Anna scolded with feigning anger.

"The boy will learn soon enough," said the father,"if he's going to be around horses for a living like your old man." A toothy grin met the boy's shallow smile.

Henry limped over to his son, tussled his hair and sat down with a wince. Anna rose to prepare her father's meal.

"Father, yesterday I went racing with our neighbor, Sam," Fred said between bites of food eager to get the words out. He continued, "We discussed the strategy of the war four decades ago, and.."

A fist pounded the dinner table, and Fred grimaced. Henry said nothing for a few moments. The lines in his face were as hard as granite, solidified by the tests of time. He reached into his coat pocket and took a sip of the flask. His posture relaxed.

"Why must the youth glorify such things as war? Son, do you know what you told me when you were five?"

Anna came back with a plate of food. The scent of chicken, potatoes, and a mix of vegetables filled the room. She returned nervously to her chair.

Without saying a word, Fred jumped out of his chair and made a salute.

"I wanted to be a solider. Something to make you and Anna proud," Fred said muscles taut.

Fred looked young for his age. He had rosy cheeks with a coat that was two sizes too big, which hung awkwardly around his small figure. His brownish blonde hair was resilient even with hours of riding with a hat. Wasps of hair protruded in different directions as if magnets were coaxing his follicles from above.

"No, Fred, you wanted to be a baker. You saw your older sister adept at making pastries, and when you tasted one your eyes lit up like a star across the night sky."

Henry's muscles loosened slightly at attention.

"And do you know what you wanted to be five years later?" asked Henry.

Fred opened his mouth, but Henry continued,"You still wanted to be a baker." There was a pause.

Fred got out a few words,"I'm older now, and now I want to be..."

"And you also wanted to work with horses like me as a farrier," Henry said. "What are you looking to gain from fighting?"

The pause was longer than Fred expected as he looked up to meet his father's gaze.

"I want to help our family, our neighbors, our country. I want to show everyone that our family is strong – that I'm strong," whispered Fred hesitant as word left his lips.

"But at the cost of losing everything?" implored the old man. "Fred, you are no fighter. Do you know when I was half your age, the war that you speak of I lived through as a boy?"

Anna sat watching the two silent in matters between father and son. She fidgeted with the cloth napkin on her lap. She had a premonition in her dream the previous night where her baby brother was taken by boat out to sea in search of something he would not say.

The words flowed out of Henry's mouth. "Of course you have. I have told you a number of stories about it, and how your grandfather passed during the ordeal. The captains who told our family the news called him a hero. And as a child I knew this was true."

Henry's gaze turned upward, and the reflection of tears appeared for a moment before a furrowing of his brow and the vessels in his eyes turned red.

"Except he wasn't a hero to me. He was dead. He was a story. And from then on I had to shoulder the burden of what should have been his duties as quickly as possible to help the family. A man's duty for a child.''

"Father, I can take care of myself - you've seen me on the horse. You know how brave I am."

"This has nothing to do with bravery, son. It's about preservation of this family – of your life. We haven't had a war in forty years, and I hope we do not see its destruction upon our lands again."

The boy's eyes widened and his fists clenched. At that moment, the national pride combined with the indignation of mistrusted authority.

"Father, I am no coward. I am able-bodied and ready to serve my country."

"Well, then I wish you were like me then," said the old man staring in his son's eyes then gazing at his left leg.

The son's anger got the best of him. "You mean a coward."

The father's face for a short moment fumed with rage before it was extinguished and he sat down despondent. The horse, who had long ago crippled around the same age as Fred today, had kicked him a second time.

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Before they could see the fortresses, they heard a sound. The sound did nothing to ruin the enthusiasm amongst the soldiers for war. This battle was more of a farce, someone on Fred’s left joked. Fred left out air, but did not laugh as he gripped the stock of his gun.

Marching initially was the only thing on his mind until the sound snapped him out his mechanical mission. His curiosity flared as the battalion met a river. But before Frederich, who marched in the second row, could cross his mind went blank, as did all his thoughts on family, horses, and every once in a while the minute differences in flour for whom he had never discussed with anyone.

He was the first kill of WWI, though it was never confirmed by anyone. Germany would see a lot more brutality in the coming days. Even though it was a victory for the Rhine, thousands perished without so much as a line in history. And yet they gave more than many of the remembered titans of the Great War, their last breath.

Henry when heard news of this fell to his knees, not in anguish but submission. Just like he saw his father off as a young boy, so too, did he see his son's life already gone.

"Not only did I lose my childhood prior, but I lost my child too," he whispered to himself as he gazed upward at his crying daughter. “The latter is worse.”

In Henry's imagination as he looked out toward his horses, where his son often stayed till dinner, he saw the body of his only child. The grass was red.