It seemed like a mil­len­nia; time eter­nal, and between a for­got­ten past and an unseen future a bunker sat; a sin­gle speck on a sheet of white bat­tered end­lessly by winds car­ry­ing the despair and hor­ror of a lost war.

A loner sat, read­ing a book, peer­ing inter­mit­tently through a tiny por­tal – the only view of a waste­land beyond. Seven years he’d been wait­ing for some­thing, for any­thing. But only con­tin­ued silence remained; the quiet tick of a men­tal clock.

Finally he began to stand, tired of sit­ting in an uncom­fort­able chair for fif­teen hours. With a hefty, yet uncom­mit­ted push he found his feet and rolled on warn boot heals to stand. A gloved hand reached out and pulled at a trench-coat. Fit­ting it around his body, he looked much like a child forced to wear cloth­ing promised to grow into. Then heavy boots shifted on the cold con­crete floor towards the door. A hel­met now accom­pa­nied the coat – a sin­gle sil­ver star on a field of red adorned the steel piss-pot.

Swiftly catch­ing a rifle rest­ing against the wall, his for­mer speed glinted momen­tar­ily before he hun­kered down and pushed aside the bolted-door. Out­side the snow rained down and bat­tered him harshly. He man­aged to fight it before turn­ing away and dis­ap­pear­ing behind the sunken bunker.

The tough dead-lock slammed into place once more as he re-entered his per­pet­ual cof­fin of soli­tude and bore­dom. Tak­ing a shit was more hap­haz­ard now that win­ter had fallen upon them, upon him. Shrink­ing back into less exter­nal attire, he passed a sin­gle cot and poured a hot, brandy-infused brew.

The tea was strong but wel­comed by the lone war­rior. Some dripped, as was com­mon, and found a place within the wiry vines of an out­grown beard. Razors, or any imple­ment with enough of a blade to trim neatly but not to ren­der him head­less was non-existent — not even a bay­o­net accom­pa­nied a soldier’s rifle in this day and age.

Tak­ing a seat once more, he glanced out­side with a usual lack of pur­pose. The sun remained strong even behind the snowy walls sur­round­ing. Inside, only an oil lamp cast any shadow across the room. There had once been an elec­tric light but after much flick­er­ing it had been put out of its mis­ery and replaced with an old, depend­able type. How he wished that were the case for him.

His thoughts wan­dered and bore­dom: the inevitabil­ity of doing what­ever could be done to save one’s san­ity began to pry with­out remorse at his frag­ile mind. Wav­ing it off, he focused on the room: his world, and then he spot­ted Bob in the cor­ner. A wave said hello, a nod and a raised cup com­mu­ni­cated his enjoy­ment of the tea and per­haps a bet­ter day. Bob said noth­ing in reply. Few mops had fully com­pre­hended the eti­quette of man­ners and small talk.

A shot rang out, an echoed scream of activ­ity beyond the walls of his box and some­thing deep down kicked in. Reflex – for what the ages had done to it – kicked in and he gripped the lanky rifle once again. Toss­ing the sil­ver bowl atop his head, he took a swift step and crum­pled beside the open­ing into no-mans land. There was noth­ing to be seen but the white, then the red…

He col­lapsed to the floor in a hump and stared at the ceil­ing. It felt cold, colder than out­side where the killer snow would burn like the blue heart of a flame. Then it felt wet; a pool of dan­ger­ous crim­son spread to the legs of his chair, his cot… then Bob’s dented tin bucket.

What he wanted to shout was ‘Call for help!’ but noth­ing left his chapped lips. The idea of bad luck, that the first per­son he’d met in years had killed him was lost. Some­thing more related to the con­cern of death and it’s imme­di­ate approach seemed more, applicable.

Whom he would have expected to call was some­thing else alto­gether. Bob, in all his mopish­ness was of course, a mop. San­ity was a fleet­ing thing how­ever, and in a des­o­late land a sim­ple wool-topped stick could become your best friend – and it had.

He glanced to the open por­tal for some clue of his killer but noth­ing pre­vailed and he sim­ply with­ered more. The blan­ket of cold that shrouded him turned to bit­ing nails and then he went numb. A gloved hand let free his rifle: it was over.

It seemed like there should have been some rea­son, some depth to his sit­u­a­tion that might have per­ceived his death in a brighter light and some­how made it mean­ing­ful. That was not the case. In a quiet, end­less land where nei­ther whis­per nor shout fell on lis­ten­ing ears, mean­ing was just as hol­low and dead. And as enemy boots crushed snow under­foot he took a final breath, and perished.