A Worse Place Than Hell

*The poppy, a symbol of sacrifice in war and hope no death in vain.

The night was dark, and the river was red. The sounds of battle—violent bangs and screams—were gone. There was only silence.

It had been a long time since acts of war had been committed on American soil, but now, that streak of homeland peace was destroyed.

Jo stood at the edge of the water, staring out into the barren grounds beyond. Her throat was dry, and her lips were cracked. Her body ached, and her stomach rumbled. But still, she stood, and she stared, twisting the stem of a wilting flower between her fingertips. Its petals were nearly the same red as the blood that coated the palms of her hands. She recalled the words President Lincoln had said after a Civil War battle—the Battle of Fredericksburg—that had stuck with her since the first time she’d heard them: “If there is a worse place than Hell, I am in it.” She was not religious, but the idea of Hell was universal, and that was certainly where she was trapped now.

Someone nudged the side of her arm, and she felt herself flinch. She knew there was no need to be alarmed—there were no longer any “dangerous” people on the field, though she wasn’t exactly certain what constituted a dangerous person anymore—but she was still tense. Her instincts hadn’t yet allowed her to relax.

“Toss it in.”

Jo looked up to meet the eyes of a fellow soldier, Micah. The look on his face was as dark as the sky. “What?”

He gestured toward the flower in her hand as he threw his own into the river. It disappeared in the current. “Your poppy.”

“Why?” She frowned. “I picked it because it was pretty and all of this is so…” She sighed and allowed her gaze to wander. The bodies had all been cleared out, but she could still feel their presence there. “Ugly.”

“I know,” Micah said. He stepped off to the side to pick another poppy from the small patch nearby. It too was flung into the water. “Just… It’s symbolic.”

“Symbolic…” Jo plucked one of the red petals from her flower and tossed it into the river as Micah had his flower. “How?”

“The poppy symbolizes—”

“Sacrifice, no death in vain, blah, blah, blah.” Jo sighed. “Okay?”

“Toss it.”

Jo glanced back down at her poppy, at the water, and back again. The Potomac River smelled familiar and sweet, but it didn’t warm her heart as it once had. It wasn’t the same as it had been the first time she’d visited this area: the memorials of Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King Jr., and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Now, it was a reminder of all that had been lost. It was a reminder of what happened when the divisions of American society became too wide, and people were allowed to fall too far into the cracks. When the rich became too rich, and the poor became too poor. Civil war.

“Listen,” he said, “it might help.”

She sighed. He wasn’t going to leave her alone if she didn’t, but at the same time, she didn’t want to give in. Then again, maybe he was right. Either way, they were the only ones still awake, with the rest of the soldiers sleeping soundly in the tents set up at their backs. There was no one to see her give in and no proof of it but his word. 

She flicked her wrist back and let the flower fly. It seemed to go in slow motion, floating down to the water and settling within it as it was whisked away. Watching it, Jo felt the weight that had begun to settle in the pit of her stomach fade into the background. Her shoulders relaxed, and her hand dropped to her side. It was as if all the tension that had rested in her body was anchored to the flower.

She released a shaky breath. “Happy?”

“I have eyes,” Micah said. “I can see that you feel better.”

Jo wished he wasn’t right, but he was. Poppies were symbols of hope, sacrifice, and remembrance, and in tossing one away and watching it disappear with the river’s current, she had freed herself from the burdens of the grief those qualities had placed upon her. She hadn’t, of course, but it was strange how an object could hold that much power over emotion. It felt almost as if it were a violation of her privacy, though she knew that wasn’t possible.

“I’ve always thought it was stupid how people assign meanings to things,” she said. “And I mean I still do but… I kind of get it.”

Micah smiled at her, though the smile was admittedly weak. “Does it help you let go? Not completely but a little bit, at least?”

She nodded. It did, and even a small amount of relief was liberating. Anything that could make dealing with this that much more manageable was worth it, and she would cling to it for dear life.