Knee Deep

• Joel Leach, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2017

Knee deep in the endless pool of white struggling to put each foot in front of myself, with every gasp of oxygen the cold air nips the back of my throat. In front of me lies one of the great marvels of the Earth once towering above a great and thriving civilisation, a civilisation that my Grandma told me stories of as a kid.

My whole life I've always been confused at why she that place meant so much to her, apparently she was only a kid when war began but still old enough to be traumatised from it. She says she remembers her parents being taken away to fight in the legendary battle and then having to live with her older cousins while her parents were away. There's one thing my Grandma told me before she died and I need to for fill her dying wish.

I didn't want to sprinkle her ashes at the bottom of the last monument, it's hard to say goodbye to someone you love. I knew that it must be done the one wish that she had wanted was to be sprinkle next to the unmarked battlefield in which her parents died. The battle was the final hope for survival against monsters that took away everything. There was not a single person who didn't see the final battle taking place right under the underneath The Monument of History.

It's the right thing to do, I put her jagged urn in my backpack and start the climb to the top. It's really slippery but it's a worthy sacrifice for me to make for my Grandma's last wish, a patriotic tribute to a great women. As I take the last step on the top of the statue I prepare to sprinkle her ashes over the frozen battlefield, I start to feel remorse as her ashes fall to the ground like paper but I know it's what she wanted.