Create with ME entry: Legacy Aground

Legacy Aground

Casper's life had been breached by a run of bad luck recently, and there it was clear – he was without; without friends, without family, without fame, without glory – he was without. He believed himself to be prestigious, and he believed strongly in the morality he'd chosen. Any intrinsic belief that he had was one of which festered and died years prior. The war was on, and Sweden had stumbled into the view of the mechanical jackal that Germany had become; it's own Titanic, setting sail not across the sea but across the peoples of Europe. Casper watched as the iron mines fell victim to the bureaucratic box ticking which had conceded the ore to Germany's war machine, large trucks stealing the ore away to the ports. Feeling dreadful conflict over his government's concessions, Casper doubled over in sickness, clinging to his dining table and retching disgustingly. He scorned at the papers. 'Neutrality,' he thought, 'never a more dishonest word.'
His wife Edith was tired of his melancholy, eventually demanding that the man move on; if the Allies would win, Sweden would be free, and if they would not – Sweden would be rich. She came across as heartless to Casper, and his pride could not hold back any admittance that he was holding back tears. “Hubris,” the man caught his breath, his stomach still clenched, “anyone caught between this war, regardless of uniform, will face hubris.” Casper despaired, climbing through the heaviness of the air to lay down in bed. “Hubris...” he repeated to himself. His body ached and his insides were turbulent. There, he sobbed.
Unable to bring anything up, not even bile, he mumbled self-pity, eventually feeling his skull pop against the cruelty; “Hubris!” he yelled, “Hubris!” he called out once more. The clarity of it all was mesmerising, and yet no-one seemed to understand. Casper knew that regardless of the victory, Sweden would be forever crippled by it's neutrality. In the times where men and women act with a union of bravery and selflessness – Casper felt the perils of the trade. His family were cut between iron workers and iron miners, and it was not the lost profit that he'd sobbed for, but the legacy. How would he look at those mines ever again? As a boy he'd see family pride, a conscientious effort, and a sturdy working-class legacy. In these terrible times? Casper, upon even a glance towards those old reflections, was adrift in anger. He retched again, feeling the pressure stabbing throughout his veins; an industry's legacy, no longer the prideful and dutiful workers – nothing but slaves to the Third Reich and it's very own Titanic. The women work the Allied factories abroad, supplying a war effort; how had it come to this? 'Hubris,' drowned Casper, 'we shall never be the same again.'. Day by day, he watched the Germans harvest his nation, and day by day, he fell sick – lost at sea, aboard a fascist dreadnought. Edith sighed, 'Hubris...'

Damien Mark Giles