Fear, and Its Vanity

It’s time to shake up the creative juices with a very short piece of historical fiction. Although I started this story as a writing exercise that requires the author to eliminate all modifiers (adjectives and adverbs), the concept evolved into a little story worth its own time and attention. That no-modifier story will be coming shortly. Until then, read about Johann:

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Smoke rose from beyond the hills, poisoning the sunset and the constancy once promised by the Italian countryside, even more so by Spezia. Far from the markets and galas of Genova, Johann thought he could afford in these acres what he could not in the city, insulation from harm. Yet it seemed he was successful at evading only the recruiters of Rome, and not the smoke he feared so dearly.

The sickness in his chest was nostalgic, yielding to the day when messengers from Marengo first brought word of invasion; that Napolean’s armies had broken the Austrian defenses, and all men of able body were to report in the ranks of Archduke John.

His parents urged Johann to follow his brothers and report immediately, but after bitter resistance he saddled the family horse and fled. With the prospect of salvation in the soil-rich hills of southern Spezia, Johann was satisfied to forget both his father’s shame and his mother’s tears.

From that day until this final one, his fevered conscience was hidden but in the care of his vineyard, which had grown tremendously in just two years of guilty toil. Yet now the flames consumed his penance, and as the burning vines crackled in the valley, the day of Johann’s cowardice dawned.

The frightening sight of well ordered Czapkas pierced the horizon, and Polish troops poured over the hills toward him, setting fresh flames upon every row of his vineyard. Sensations flushed wildly through Johann’s body, and in his last moments there surfaced a crisp revelation of fear, and its vanity.