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T U S C A R O R A R E V I E W 2 0 1 8

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THE DAISY

Ronan Bogley

oom! A few yards above the trench where Private Williams was crouching, a

mortar exploded, sending shrapnel in all directions.

The date was August 30th, 1944. The Allies were fifteen days into Operation

Dragoon in Southern France, fighting to secure ports on the French

Mediterranean coast.

Private Williams and a handful of his battalion were currently pinned down

by German artillery. The air was filled with the stale, acrid smell of gunpow-

der, and the whirring sound of bullets flying past them had become no more

than a white noise. The rain had turned the trench into a pit of mud.

Williams noticed that there was an opening amidst the gunfire, so he popped

his rifle above the trench wall and fired, his bullet striking an oncoming Ger-

man soldier in the head, his helmet splitting open as he fell motionless onto

the grassy plain. WhenWilliams ducked back down, his eyes fell on something

that he had not noticed before. Gazing at him from the precipice, some of its

roots hanging over the side, exposed to the cold air, was a single, solitary daisy.

WhenWilliams saw it, he thought back to a time and place where the fields

were a place of blissful solitude, and not the place of nightmares and ma-

chines. He found himself returned to a time about twelve years gone, when

he was eleven years old and lived in upstate New York with his parents and

brother and sister. The three siblings went to the same elementary school, and

after the final bell had rung, he would take the one-mile trek with his siblings

back to the house. If the weather was nice, they would often stop for hours in

the wide field by their house.

On this day, spring had come into full effect. He could hear the birds chirp-

ing, the insects buzzing, and the emerald leaves whispering in the light breeze.

He could see the yellow rays of the midafternoon sun cascading through the

trees, to fall and melt into pools of light on the lush green grass below. He could

see the bees racing to pollinate the flowers, and the wonderful blooms that

lasted but a blink of the eye decorating the trees, their petals even now being

carried off into the field. Finally, he saw himself and his two siblings, one of

their hands in each of his.

They walked to the top of the hill, the breeze blowing his sister’s long hair

in front of her face. Here they stood, taking in all the palette that met their

eyes. Simultaneously, they dropped to the ground and rolled down the green

mound. When the boys came to the bottom, they started to laugh but when

they got up to walk to the top again their sister was still lying face down.

Williams walked over to her, gently rolled her over, and saw that she was

crying. There was a scrape on her knee. He held her head against his shoulder

and looked for something to cheer her up. That’s when he found it. A daisy.

Boom! Another mortar strike made Williams come to. The sound of the

German forces was closer than before. He looked again at the daisy. Then, with

tears in his eyes, he gingerly reached out and plucked it. He put it to his lips

and whispered, “I love you.”

Robert Taylor, Beast – Illustration