I once fell in love with a boy who died one hundred years ago. He was killed the same year that my Great Aunt Mary was born and she lived until she was 96. He didn't have that kind of longevity. He didn't make it to twenty six before he tumbled out of the sky.
In his Albatros D with it's twin machine guns, he became a war hero back in 1916. When he died, he wasn't wearing his helmet or his seat belt. His wings melted after the ascent and he fractured his skull as he hit the earth, but his eyes were blue and expression serious but sweet. It's obvious, even in sepia tinted photographs.
Pale, sky blue.
And he wrote beautiful letters to his family. I've read them all. And his journals. He loved his mother and he loved his dog. He once saved a boy from drowning in France. He wasn't sure if he could dance, but he enjoyed to nonetheless. And he loved to fly.
They call him an innovator of flight because he didn't live long enough to become a true legend like his pupil, the infamous Red Baron. The same man who graces cardboard boxes of frozen pizza in the supermarket.
He would have been my enemy had I been born in 1891 like him. Now, most scholars still puzzle over why we fought that war in the first place. He was hailed as a hero in 1916 after he fell, but now we merely ask why and shake our heads, cluck our tongues in sympathy, mutter how pointless, what a waste. Such a promising boy with a sweet expression.
But there will always be such boys with sweet expressions, birth year followed by a dash and then a question mark.
I suppose there is some comfort knowing that he died flying, his last moments far above the pointless conflict, lost in the abyss that matched his eyes.
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