Mood:
vegas luckyTopic: "Day-O, Me Wan Go"(7)
The numbers, so they say, are not all in, but inaccuracy fails the relevancy test this eve. A few short hours ago, the Hobbit was captivated by the choreography of the trees. He stood on the deck at Lake Lovey as the random nature of the dance was driven by the swirling forces of wind, and as lovely as one shore might be, that which held him to its breast dipped its dancers ever diving like spiny fingers in an ominous threat to his very existence. The broken combinations of sky blue and rolling thunder were mixed with dark clouds, unleashed on a battlefield that knew no boundary.
The power went off somewhere after eight o'clock, and for the next several hours only the emergency weather radio could grind information about the whirling dervishes of weather that seemed to follow each other on a track that was laid by a plan drawn three thousand years ago on the Plains of Troy. Nervously, the Hobbit scanned the horizon, and behind and all-about for the first sight of his foe. Sure he was that a scimitar would slash a path which would end the days of the Hobbit and the words herein would be no more.
When the cavalry of the rain struck first, the Hobbit knew that he must retreat, but foolish it would be to assume that the first thrust would be meant for finality. The Hobbit sought not the hiding place, nay, he proceeded to act as if it were but another nightfall calling him to gentle slumber. Then came the artillery of the hailstones, and Frodo's gallant comrades were unsettled, and called for mercy. Frodo and Sam led the gentle Fiona and Mick, the Wonder Dog, out into the darkness once the barrage had slowed to irregularity. There would be little rest for any that night, but all depended on Frodo for safety.
When the dawn came, and nature called, Frodo again sullied forth into the daylight not yet fully developed. He found a fellow traveler who told him that more than 120 souls had been lost overnight, and there was no estimate of the toll paid in their viccinity, and little knowledge about the destruction visited upon their neighbors. They had beaten back the foe, but the costs were untallied.
The power was restored a few hours later, and the flow of information was immediate, and painful. Many died, on this night of swords, and the costs to those who would continue forward were akin to what befell those few souls who survived the charge with Pickett, or had been among those serving in the Light Brigade. As Frodo and Sam marshlled their tactical retreat to the Shire they were confronted with the destruction of the less fortunate.
Their rendezvous, they knew, was merely delayed this day, but that did not alter the fact that they were grateful for this day, and for more to come. The losses and the lost reminded them of just how sweet is victory, and that it is always shrouded in cost.
