Fiction
Settling Down
By Tristan Carr
In the midst of a cruel Christmas snow just outside of Great Falls, Montana, Arthur brought his axe down on the evening’s desperate firewood. Through the cold and the wind, even he couldn’t hear the shivering song as it approached his lips. Though like a wanderer, Weary and lone, Darkness comes over me, My rest a stone He had first heard those words when he arrived in the trenches at Bathelémont. Paces away, a boy barely older than himself had clutched a rifle to his chest as he sang with a voice as dull as his eyes. Yet in my dreams I’d be Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee, Amen The words faded and died as the boy went over the top, and his body tumbled into Arthur’s lap. Arthur remembered his face as he placed another log atop the stump. The cold eyes, closed lips. The face was just as dead as when he had started singing.
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