Short fiction: “Prussian Occupation, Ontario”

I could feel myself coming back to life as rolling green hills unfolded before me. Twenty-seven years had elapsed since I had left this place behind, and yet, every twist and turn felt intimately familiar, as if it had been just yesterday. I knew in that very moment that I’d never stopped missing the place. I’d lived there less than a year as a young man, and had thought I’d been miserable at the time — but somehow, the area had embedded itself under my skin.

The rosy-cheeked boy in the passenger seat had said very little in the hour since I had picked him up. He seemed to be 18 or 19 at most and was wearing some sort of military uniform, to which was pinned an oval-shaped regimental badge featuring an eagle looking to the left, and some Cyrillic letters. He told me he was on his way to liberate his ancestral homeland. He perked up as we approached a certain road sign:

PRUSSIAN OCCUPATION 13 KM
RIVER OF TEARS 24 KM

“That’s the place,” he said, pointing excitedly to the sign as we sped past it.

“Do you want to know how the war is going to turn out?”, I asked. “I’m not sure your own participation will make a difference either way. Why risk your life for nothing?”