Neverending by Madeleine Vigneron

As the aerial raid progresses toward active bombing, Macaulay utilizes impressionist techniques and sparse diction to immerse the reader in the sensory overwhelm of the aerial raid and focalize the civilians’ panic and trauma. The onomatopoeic “Crash!” evokes a vividly jarring sound image (Macaulay 68). The exclamation is abrupt and unexpected, mirroring the panic-inducing air raid. This sensory immersion draws the reader into the civilians’ somatic and psychic reality, which is fragmented by trauma. The poem’s fractured structure suggests that the severe trauma of an aerial raid disturbs the civilians’ psyche, resulting in an inability to organize stimuli. Consumed with a concern of immediate survival, civilians struggle to articulate the trauma of the raid through full sentences. Moreover, the short sentences and focus on the present exemplify the unrelenting anxiety of experiencing an unpredictable bomb raid. Using present-tense interjections such as “Crash!”, the speaker abandons any sense of hindsight which would offer a sense of ease or predictability in the situation. Instead, the reader must experience the event with the same immediacy and uncertainty as the civilian observer. Through impressionist techniques of onomatopoeia and sparse diction, the text establishes how the psychic trauma of the civilian experience compares to the traumatic experiences of soldiers. Following the violence and trauma of the bomb raid, Macaulay employs the silencing of internal rhyming structures to convey the aftermath of a bomb raid and illustrate how the cataclysmic scale of war complicates grief for soldiers and civilians alike. In one rhyme, a line illustrates the entombing devastation of bomb damage, describing, “Last time they messed our square, and left it a hot rubbish-heap, / With people sunk in it so deep…” (68). The poem’s enclosed rhyme parallels the rhyme’s content, with the embedded completion of the rhyme mirroring how the homes and bodies of civilians are buried beneath heaps of rubble in the aerial raid’s aftermath. Also, the internal placement of the rhyme’s completion reflects the silencing effect of a rubble-heap. Without the aural emphasis or pronounced visibility of a placement at the end of the line, the rhyming pattern becomes less obvious, even potentially obscured by adjacent words. The dampening of internal rhymes evokes how the tremendous scale of bombing damage obstructs civilian grief. The metaphors and understatement of the aerial attack as a “show” or “shadow” of the experiences of soldiers reflect the helplessness felt by civilians and examines the difference between soldier and civilian experiences. The final unitalicized stanza of the poem concludes with the ironic understatement, “Tonight’s show begins, it seems” (68). The detached understatement of the line creates irony, juxtaposed against visceral images of the death and destruction wrought by the aerial attack. Additionally, the non-committal phrasing of “it seems” hints at further uncertainty. Though the night’s attacks have begun, the civilians are unable to anticipate the severity, timing, or duration of future attacks and are powerless to resist them. Moreover, the metaphor of the bombing as a “show” reinforces the helplessness of the civilians: like spectators attending a play or film, they are powerless to do anything but observe.

Instances of understatement and anaphora emphasize how the experiences of civilians, though legitimately traumatic and devastating, differ from the experience of soldiers on the Western Front. The speaker intertwines graphic descriptions of the horror of the aerial raid with italicized stanzas stating that such horrors are “pale” or periphery “shadows” of the “Fear,” “Pain,” and “Hell” which the “world’s young men” must confront in war (68). The word “shadow” suggests that the terror that the civilians experience is a diminished facsimile of the acute horror, danger, and trauma that soldiers experience. In addition, adjectives like “pale” describe the civilian experience as diluted in intensity. However, “shadow” also suggests that the two traumas are related. The silhouette of a shadow cannot exist without the source object it reflects and emulates. Thus, though the intensity of the civilian and soldier experience may differ, they share common elements of death and destruction, common symptoms of trauma, and a common cause: the scourge of war. Finally, the central metaphor of the civilian experience as a “shadow” echoes the poem’s title of “The Shadow,” reinforcing the connection between civilian and soldier experiences. The speaker first uses the term “shadow” to describe the ominous arrival of the aerial bomber, affirming that though the civilian and soldier experiences are not identical, they are both rooted in the suffering of war. Rose Macaulay’s poem “The Shadow” utilizes poetic techniques to explore the subjective experience of civilians during an aerial raid while situating them within a broader understanding of the experience of soldiers. Describing how the bombers of the soldiers’ Western Front encroach upon the homefront in an aerial raid, subjecting civilians to some of the horrors of active combat, onomatopoeia and internal rhymes evoke the sensory pandemonium of bombing while sparse diction emphasizes the inarticulable severity of trauma. The metaphor of the aerial bombing as a “show” reflects the powerlessness and uncertainty civilians feel as spectators to devastation. Finally, in “The Shadow,” the poem’s central metaphor of the civilian experience as a “shadow” of the soldier’s experience reveals that though these experiences may differ in intensity and scale, they are similar in the destruction they wreak and their cause. Through the poem’s emphatic and vivid focus on civilian experiences, Macaulay refuses to diminish the trauma endured by civilians to bolster the atrocities soldiers face, suggesting that the civilian wartime experience is distinct but equally valid. The greater horrors witnessed by soldiers do not devalue the trauma of civilians; instead, they reiterate the indiscriminate and despicable magnitude of wartime loss.

Work Cited Macaulay, Rose. “The Shadow.” Scars Upon My Heart: Women’s Poetry and Verse of the First World War, edited by Catherine Reilly, Virago, 2006, pp. 67-68.

NEVERENDING

Written by Madeleine Vigneron Illustrated by Cristina Soares

On her fifth life, Georgia stops trying to save the world. She gave it her all. She gave it four of her alls, actually; didn't even stop after the lucky third try left her smoldering on the metaphorical barbeque of a distracted amateur griller. Georgia spent four entire lifetimes trying to save the world, but the world simply does not want to be saved. So, she emerges bloody and wailing into the cold hospital air, she blinks her eyes open for the fifth very first time, she lives an unassuming life with an unassuming family, she touches The Orb at the age of sixteen and her four past lifetimes rush back into her body like a brass-knuckle punch to the synapses, and then she puts The Orb back in the dusty attic box where she found it, heads back downstairs, and decides get an early start on applying to university. She’s never done university before. Usually at this point she’s learning forbidden secrets from a bald disciple with a penchant for the dramatic. It’s honestly impressive how many secrets those guys have hidden. Four entire training montages and they never once double dipped. Maybe if they’d just given her the SparkNotes the first time around, she wouldn’t have had her ass beat so many times. But the disciples know best.

That’s what Modesty seems to think when he appears in her dorm room two years later, bald scalp shining and deep blue robes draped artfully over one shoulder as always. Georgia drops her backpack on the floor, kicks the door closed behind her, and says, “Seriously?” “I’m confused, Georgia,” Modesty says. His voice is a calm stream rumbling over the grey face of a mountain, but the girl across the hall has friends over and they are being as nightmarishly loud as always. It kind of ruins the effect. “What are you confused about?” Georgia asks. “What could possibly be confusing about this?” “You’ve never shirked your duties like this before. You’ve received the necessary knowledge to proceed with your destiny, and yet you haven’t sought us out. What are you doing?” “I’m seeking higher education,” Georgia says. Modesty waits patiently. “I’m seeking higher education that isn’t about the plane beyond ours. Or situated on a mountain. I’m seeking, like, medium-height education. Mid-tier but still pretty high up there.”

Modesty waits some more. “Look,” Georgia says. She doesn’t have to explain herself to him, but actually, maybe she does. “I’m really tired of dying, okay? I did my best. Four whole times. It wasn’t good enough. If this was my destiny it would have stuck by now, but I still haven’t figured it out and I’m done trying. I just want to live a normal life before the Neverending comes and destroys everything. I’ve got a few good years left. I wanna use them for something that matters.” Modesty says, “This is what you think matters?” He surveys the room. Georgia’s schedule is tacked to a bulletin board, along with some pictures of her friends, and a to-do list. The list says things like Laundry on Tuesday and Outline history paper, not Learn to harness the boundless energy in the space between worlds and then fail to properly channel it once again when that space is cleft open, allowing the Neverending to successfully claw its way into our reality, take a giant bite out of the space currently occupied by Planet Earth, and also slap around a girl who is honestly trying her best before burning her to death with magic space fire. Georgia says, “Yeah. I do, actually. And I deserve it.” Modesty says, “Hm.” Then he says, “Hm,” again. Then he unsheathes a brilliant white sword and cleanly decapitates her.

On her sixth life, Georgia runs away.

After The Orb lets her relive that wonderful last moment, she drops it back into the box where she found it and legs it downstairs. She packs a bag and writes a note and gets the hell out of there. The disciples don’t come after her immediately, likely because they assume that she’s seeking them out instead of playing destiny truant. After about six months, though, they figure out that she isn’t just struggling severely with directions to the sanctuary, and Modesty appears, shiny-headed and robe-swathed, in the small-town diner where Georgia managed to secure a waitressing job. When Georgia spies him waiting patiently at a table in her section, she bolts. Modesty beats her to the bus stop. Georgia holds her pepper spray aloft. “Stay back.” “Georgia,” Modesty replies, voice low and disappointed. “Is that any way to greet an old friend?” “Are you kidding me?” “I am not,” Modesty says. “Now stop this and come with me.” “You decapitated me!” Georgia shouts. “With a sword!” “And I don’t want to have to do it again,” Modesty says, “but you’re putting things much bigger than you in jeopardy, and I can’t allow that.” Georgia pepper-sprays him. The bus unfortunately doesn’t roll up just when she needs to make her emergency exit, so she sprints away, leaving Modesty coughing and hacking and rubbing his eyes with the midnight fabric of his robes. It’s a hike back to her apartment, so she’s hacking her lungs out just as much by the time she makes it home. Soaked in sweat like a despised teacher in an elementary school fun day dunk tank, Georgia unlocks her door with shaky fingers and staggers inside, collecting her prepacked escape bag. She opens the door again to leave, sees Modesty standing there, and screams. His eyes are rimmed slightly with red, and his voice is less tranquil than usual. “Don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be.” Georgia fumbles for her pepper spray again, and in a voice that Georgia would almost dare describe as worried, he says, “Do not - spray me again - or next time I will go right to the sword.” Georgia’s hands still. “What do you want from me?” Modesty frowns. “I want you to fulfill your destiny.” “I can’t!” Georgia says. “We’ve been over this! I can’t do it! You’ve got the wrong girl!” “The universe does not make mistakes.”

“If not, then you do.” Modesty raises an eyebrow. “Am I the only one here who remembers how this has gone every single time I tried it?” Georgia asks desperately. “I’ve never understood the whole timeline situation, but I know you know what’s already happened to me. I can’t do it. I can’t! I know the world is going to end because I’m the only person between it and the Neverending and I’m just not good enough! So please just let me live my life before it ends!” “Hm,” Modesty says, and Georgia genuinely thinks he’s considering it, but then he says, “No,” and decapitates her again.

On her seventh life, Georgia tells her mom. Unfortunately, this almost gets her institutionalized. It does keep her under enough scrutiny that she can’t make a break for it this time around, but she doubts it would work anyways. She does briefly wonder if she is in fact crazy, so when Modesty appears next to her in the backyard only a month after her encounter with The Orb, she lifts the sunglasses from her eyes and says, “You’re real, right?” “Georgia,” Modesty says, “we are much too far behind schedule for you to have an existential crisis right now.” “Great.” Georgia relaxes back into the lawn chair. She’s learned her lesson about running away. “Deeply helpful as always. Please don’t kill me again.” Modesty’s mouth puckers into a lemonlike little frown. “I’ve never intended to hurt you, Georgia. I really am trying to help. But you’re not cooperating.” “Let’s play this out for a second.” Georgia stirs the little umbrella in her lemonade in tiny circles and takes an obnoxiously loud sip. “Say I go with you. Train again. Fight the Neverending again. Then what happens?” Modesty says, “You die again.” Georgia puts down her lemonade and sits up straight. “Run that by me again,” Georgia says. “You die again,” Modesty repeats. “You’re not strong enough to defeat the Neverending. Not yet. But every time it kills you, you take into yourself a piece of its power. Which is why we’ve locked you into this loop. But you’ve wasted two cycles now, and my sword can only harness a fraction of the energy the Neverending can. We’re behind schedule, and you’re going to have to make up for it before we run out of cycles.” Georgia blinks. Quite a few times.