A.A. Medina
The small village was home to fewer than a hundred souls and tucked away in the middle of the Italian hinterlands. No one, not even Geppetto, thought their quiet community would see the war and yet the battle had ripped through the town, leaving loss and suffering in its wake. The countryside was once a peaceful place; blue skies, rolling hills, singing birds, and frolicking children. Now, pillars of smoke rose from the fires that pockmarked the fields, ash and remains—of both man and machine—littered the landscape.
Geppetto gazed out across the scorched earth. The zeppelins were faint dots in the distance. However, if he listened intently, he could still hear the percussion of the bombs resonate through the atmosphere.
His grandfather used to tell him, “There is always a gold nugget in the heap of dung, put in the work and find it, or get out.” Unfortunately, for Geppetto, there was no getting out.
He trekked through the aftermath, searching for metals and goods with minimal damage. Geppetto owned a small metal workshop where he forged and fixed tools, farming equipment, and even dabbled in décor. In the path of destruction, the armies left behind military-grade iron, bronze, and steel—he’d need it to rebuild and restore what was left of his village.
“Jiminy, whoa.” Geppetto dug his heels into the side of his aging mule and dismounted. Searching the general area, he tossed small gears, nuts, bolts, sheet metal—anything he could lift and carry on his own —into the open carriage. It would take many days and many trips to scavenge just the little stuff and, if there were any able-bodied men left, he’d have to enlist them to retrieve the bigger scraps.
The thought brought pain to Geppetto. A sense of guilt weighed on him. Back at the village, grieving mothers wailed over the brutalized bodies of their dead sons. The few of the militia that survived wandered, shell-shocked among the ruins. When the horns had blared, and the denizens took up arms, determined to defend their homes knowing full well the attempt would be feeble, Geppetto had hidden like a coward. His every attempt to conjure courage stifled by the sound of the bombardments.
With tears in his eyes, Geppetto continued his search. Those boys deserve honor, he thought. They cannot be lost to history, they fought and died for all they had—and for us. They deserve to be immortalized.
Then he heard it. A groan, a moan, a cough. Geppetto spotted an arm jutting out from under a large piece of armor-plating and scurried over.
“Hey! Hey!” Geppetto fell to his stomach, trying to get a glimpse at the unfortunate being. A young boy and, from what he could see through the wreckage, he wasn’t wearing a uniform. “Boy, are you okay?”
“Please… Help…”
“Hang on!”
Geppetto jumped to his feet, rushed over to Jiminy and unlatched the ropes from the carriage. “Let’s go!” He pulled on Jiminy’s bridle, leading him toward the boy. With haste, Geppetto tied, wrapped, and looped, the ropes to any jagged corner or holes he could find in the hunk of steel. “I’m gonna get you out of there, boy! Just hold on!” With one end of the rope secured to Jiminy’s harness, Geppetto wrapped the other end around his waist and tied it tight. He smacked Jiminy hard on the behind, stinging his palm.
“Get! Get!” Both man and mule pulled. Every muscle in Geppetto’s body strained. His heels dug into the ground and just when he thought his plan was futile, the mass of metal budged. “Get! Get!” Inch by inch, the slab slid away until Geppetto could see most of the boy’s body. “Whoa!”
Geppetto untied the rope from his waist and scurried to the boy. He looked lifeless save the blinking of his eyes. His legs were a mangled mess, his farmer’s clothes torn, shredded, and stained with crimson and mud. Geppetto wasn’t sure if he wanted to cry or vomit. He looked away and collected himself.
“Okay, let’s get you out of here.” Geppetto knelt and scooped up the body. The boy screamed and writhed in pain, almost causing Geppetto to drop him. Then he fainted.
Tears left Geppetto’s dirty cheeks bedraggled as he marched the limp, mangled body back to the carriage.
***
Geppetto brought the boy back to his cottage, cleaned his body, dressed his wounds, and placed him in a makeshift cot by the fireplace. The poor boy was still unconscious; his breathing short and stuttered. Geppetto knew there was a slim chance he’d still be alive when the sun rose the next morning.
He sat by the boy for hours, but his sympathy, his helplessness, his guilt, became unbearable. This boy, he thought, this boy was no older than thirteen, yet he took up arms and fought. You will be remembered, boy.
Geppetto stepped outside to his forge. He retrieved gears and bolts and nuts and scrap from the carriage and tossed them onto the burning coals. Throughout the night, he hammered away, manipulating the glowing steel and iron. Thin pipes for the legs and arms. A collection of forge-wielded cannisters for the torso. Carefully, with a ball peen hammer, Geppetto formed and shaped a face into a piece of sheet metal. He used nuts for the eyes and a giant bolt for the nose.
Hours and hours had passed before Geppetto was done. He dropped his hammer and sat against the stone half wall. His face flushed red and sweat streamed down it to soak his tunic. The strange metal sculpture, resembling a boy, only stood two feet tall, but Geppetto knew what he had to do to honor the fallen. This is my prototype, he thought. Tomorrow, I’ll begin work on the big one, the one I will erect in the village center as a reminder to what they sacrificed and to what we lost.
Geppetto thought of the boy inside his cottage. He wondered if he were still alive. He looked up into the night, the glow of the rising sun had started to redden the horizon, and a shooting star streaked across the sky. “Please, let the boy live on…” he said to the universe. “Please.” Geppetto climbed to his feet and returned to his cottage.
Inside, the boy was still. Geppetto approached and fell to his knees, clasping the small, cold hand between both of his, he placed his weary head on the boy’s quivering chest and wept. The boy inhaled…
…Then exhaled, for the last time.
Outside, the morning sun gleamed off the metal sculpture and its iron arm creaked as it rose, shielding the glaring light from its eyes.
***
A. A. Medina is the co-owner and editor of Aphotic Realm Magazine and author of the transgressive-horror novella, Siphon. When he is not melting in the Arizona sun or rewriting the same three chapters of his next book, Medina writes short stories. One in particular may be inspired by the first World War’s nine martyr villages of Verdun and his favorite childhood tale about a magical boy named Pinocchio.