The Soldier Who Had to Die

I killed a soldier in Songless: The Desert. The man has only a small part in the story. He is one of the Rangers. His name is Stephen Abbott. The last we see of him is as he walks away into the churning sand of time. At least, that is what we see. He says before he disappears, “You do not see what I see.”

I had to kill him. His death moved the plot along. It made the reader realize the stakes involved. How dangerous the world of Songless really is. How quickly a life can be lost, and how this event affects the main characters. The ones who make it to the end.

He wasn’t meant to make it through to the end, after all. In truth, Stephen only has a few lines before descending into a fever sleep from which he never awakens.

I did what the story needed. Even so, I think about him. I wonder where he’s gone. I wonder who he loved and who loved him. Does his mother know, or is she even still alive? Did he only exist to make those who loved him miserable at his loss?

Then I ask myself: What did he see? Where did he go? I wonder if he will someday return to the world I created. The world in which he had to die. I keep searching for an answer. I plunder my imagination in search of a story about him, tossing aside the through-line to the book’s end to see if something’s happening outside the marathon of the middle.

He isn’t just a plot device. He trained to be a Ranger. That’s no small task. They are the tip of the King’s spear. They are broken men sent to protect others from breaking. They will eat the apple to keep Eve from loneliness. Some say this makes them villains. I can’t completely speak for Eve, but I don’t think she’d agree.

I want to know where he is. I want to know what story he is in now. I cannot believe he is gone. I see him walking toward another battle. A place beyond my sight. A realm that needs a hero. But all I get from Stephen is silence.

I can’t quite picture who he was before he unwittingly swallowed poison. He is an enigma even to me. All I know is that his fellow rangers mourned him. They knew him, and they too remain silent on their loss. They keep him to themselves. They still belong to this world, but Stephen belongs to them.

And I hate myself. For I am god of his world. I created it. I made it real. And I let him die. No, I decided he had to die. As the author, I know it served a purpose. But what purpose could it serve? I can only say in small ways because I cannot see him now. I am not the real God, but a semblance of the one holy fire that I am not worthy to look upon. I don’t really understand why one man must live and another must die. All I know is that the story must continue the way it was meant to be written. Even so, all I get from Stephen is silence.

He lies quietly beneath a crest. The seal of the King pressed into his cold flesh. His hands still and pale. I think more and more that he was the best of the Rangers. They grew up after his loss. They learned about poison. They experienced their first true sense of shame in the underhanded way he was taken from them. But as the General told them, “There is no good way for a man to die.”

There isn’t. In this story, there are only the living, awash in shame and righteous anger. And even though Stephen is silent for now, there are battles still to come.