Here's something about a beach. Sorry if it's not quite as joyful as the Beach Day art JoB linked earlier.
The Beach
Lalli was woken by a sharp nudge at the ribs. “Look sharp!”
It was Emil, sitting next to him on a most uncomfortable seat. The entire surroundings were extremely uncomfortable. It was a wonder really that Lalli had been able to sleep at all, as the smallish space was reverberating with the worst noise he’d had to endure since the fateful trip on the Dalahästen train. It was somewhat similar too, yet different. It had the same mechanical quality as all the buzzsaws working at once, but this was a more even rhythm. Stupid, horrible noise!
Slowly becoming aware of the other elements in his surroundings, Lalli discovered a few things. The space was indeed smallish, with slightly curved walls of metal. The long benches on either side were occupied by a group of men. Military, Lalli could tell immediately. They all had similar clothing, which had to be uniforms of dusty brown. Just plain brown, and everyone was wearing or holding a round hat made of metal. Lalli noticed his own hat in his hand, along with a heavy pack on his back.
So, some sort of transport. It was heaving a bit too. It was bigger than anything Lalli had ever seen, but otherwise somewhat familiar, except for the noise. And the air… full of smells of men in small spaces of course, but there was something weird about it.
Before he could make more observations, Mikkel stood up on the far end of the room. He was wearing similar attire, but no pack. He was shouting. “Ok men, we are approaching the drop zone. Everybody ready! Check your gear!”
Many of the men around paled at this and fiddled nervously with their equipment. But Emil was beaming. “You hear that? We are at the drop zone! You ready? I know I am!”
Now the men were putting on their hats and standing up to form a line at the middle of the space. Just as Mikkel grabbed a handle on a hatch, Lalli realised why he felt so weird. They were very high up! And now Mikkel opened the hatch, and it opened directly to the outside. Who would think of opening it when they were high up? Who had put it there? Someone might fall! Stupid hatch!
Many of the men grunted at the view, and even Lalli made a small noise. They were much higher than he could ever have imagined. An unknown land opened far and wide, far, far below. Definitely much higher than that time when Onni had lifted him from the Dream Sea and flown him to his haven. Even worse, the landscape was moving. They were in some sort of a sky ship! Lalli was reeling with surprise and nausea.
Just as Lalli thought the situation couldn’t possibly get any worse, Mikkel was shouting again. “Ok, Team one, go!” The men nearest to him stepped to the opening and jumped into the emptiness. A boy next to Lalli looked like he was about to faint. Another one threw up noisily in the other line. But they kept going, and one by one they reached the opening and just jumped to their apparent death. Now Emil was standing at the edge, shouting something unintelligible, and down he went. Lalli tried to stop him, but there was no way, as Emil clearly voluntarily jumped.
Next it was Lalli’s turn. He was standing at the opening, staring out in wide-eyed horror at the speeding landscape and some weird… flowers?... floating around him. He was about to turn towards Mikkel to protest, but Mikkel said “No time for cold feet, soldier” and unceremoniously booted him out. In the moment of shock Lalli had time to realize Mikkel wasn’t really home, the person at the hatch had the empty eyes of Dream-Mikkel. Stupid, stupid Dream-Mikkel!
So, this is a dream. Maybe I won’t die. But I really don’t want to try how it feels to fall from this height. Lalli was arranging his limbs in mid-air, but it didn’t seem likely to help much. Suddenly he realized Emil was near, and now Emil was behind him? But Emil fell first, how can this…? “Pull! Don’t freeze! Pull open the chute!” Pull? There were some cords dangling from Lalli’s pack, that sort of looked like a handle. He grabbed it, pulled strongly, and with a weird swooshing sound he was suddenly jolted to a halt. No, just slowed down a lot. Maybe I really won’t die!
The flower-shaped thing slowed Lalli down sufficiently so that he managed to make a gracious landing. He was a bit less gracious getting out of the pack and the expanses of cloth (stupid lifesaver-flower-thing!), but after a while he was standing in a field. He couldn’t take the entire lifesaving pack with him, but he discovered a smaller backpack containing some ammo to a sidearm he had with him along with some other items. All around him, men were falling from loud skymachines. Most of them managed to… pull the chute? But not all. Lalli decided it’s best to stop watching. Instead, he looked around. There were some trees nearby, and some of the cloth seemed to be stuck to them, so Lalli went there to check.
Emil was hanging from a tree branch by the ropes between him and the cloth. “Oh, there you are, my lad! Why don’t you give your sarge a hand?” Lalli didn’t understand what is a sarge and what he was supposed to do, so he went to help Emil down from the tree. “There’s a good lad! Thank you! You see anyone else around?” Lalli waved upwards and around. “Oh of course, they are all around the place. Well, I’m sure we can regroup in no time! Follow me, soldier!”
After a while of walking around, Emil stopped. “Well. Um. I think we are a bit off course. Would you happen to have an inkling of where the beach is?”
“37,43 km to the north”
“Oh, thank you lad. That was surprisingly accurate. Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Well, let’s go then” Emil started marching towards the south-west. Lalli stood in place. “Chop chop! Move it!”
“North” Lalli said, nodding towards the north.
“What’s that again, my lad?”
“North. That way.” Now Lalli was pointing.
“Ah, of course, of course. Let’s get started, we have a bit of hike ahead of us if your distance estimate is correct.”
“It is.”
They started walking towards the north. After a while they ran into Reynir, who was sitting on rock looking lost like a lamb. He was also wearing the uniform, but he had something else looking weird about him as well. It was his hair! Or rather, his hair wasn’t. He had the same weird round hat that seemed to be the top fashion around here, and there was no way his braid could have fit inside it. So, the braid must be gone. Stupid braid. Stupid Reynir. Lalli had not missed Reynir, and he certainly didn’t miss his idiotic braid. But he did look weird without it. Even more stupid than usually.
Reynir was terrified and blabbering (what else is new?) but while he was very like the real thing (except for the hair) Lalli saw it was just Dream-Reynir. Nevertheless, he tagged along, being equal parts irritatingly helpful and irritatingly afraid of everything. But to Lalli’s surprise, he was able to keep marching, as did Emil. They made good time towards the beach.
As they were drawing nearer, it became evident that there was a fight going on. Explosions and gunfire could be heard a lot before they saw anything. Lalli spotted groups of men advancing into the same direction they did, some in an orderly fashion, others in haphazard groups, or alone. There were also machines. Armored vehicles of various descriptions and tanks. And flying machines above. Stupid flying machines!
“Ok men, I think our position should be on top of that ridge” Emil had to be shouting to be heard over the commotion, despite them being still far away from the battle. What sort of a grossling horde requires this much firepower? Who HAS this much firepower?
The sound of fighting was deafening. They had to crouch down and almost crawl towards the ridge point. Peering over the summit, Lalli saw the horror of the battlefield. Machine guns, hand grenades, heavy artillery, men with rifles… it didn’t make any sense. He didn’t see a grossling anywhere. Coming to think of it, he didn’t feel any nearby at all. T
aking another look the truth dawned to Lalli. A truth much worse than the moment when he realized he was meant to jump into the emptiness of the sky below.
“It’s people! Emil! They are shooting people! Look, people on the ridges are shooting at people on those boats! Why would anyone…!” Lalli felt nauseous. He had seen terrible injuries, he had listened to his home village burn, but never in his worst nightmares could he have imagined something like this.
The sea was teeming with boats, carrying men to the shore. Men shouting and shooting. And other humans, on the ridges, shooting directly at the people coming ashore. And the people on the beach were shooting on the ridges. And large war machines were reaping destruction everywhere. The beach and the water were black and red with the dead and the dying, and still more kept coming…
The ground was heaving under Lalli, and suddenly he felt the pain of all those thousands upon thousands of people hurting and dying around him. He burst to tears.
“Well, now, lad, calm down! It’s quite something, but they are Nazis you know. It’s them or us. Snap out of it now.” Emil was trying to sound calming, but he was visibly pale too. Stupid Emil. He took of his hat, wiping his forehead.
Among all the terror, another terrible detail caught Lalli’s attention. “Emil, what have you done with your hair?”
“My… my hair?!” Emil was trying, and failing, to grasp his locks. His hair was about 1 cm long, just like Reynir’s, and was hardly able to show his blonde color, let alone any sparkle. “It’s gone! Oh no, my HAIR!!!”
* * *
Emil and Lalli awoke in their bed. Emil was clutching his lovely, chin-length hair, and Lalli was holding his ears until the shrieking subsided. With the immediate panic resolved, Lalli remembered the horrible scene.
“What” he asked gravely “was that all about? Humans attacking humans, with military weapons. Why would you dream something like this?”
“I’m sorry. It’s this book… look, it’s about Omaha Beach. I thought that sounded fun.”
Any historical inaccuracies can be blamed on the author of Emil's book.
I tried to do some research on Omaha Beach by watching clips of Saving Private Ryan. I couldn't stomach it very long. So I basically just typed this up.
