Commander Bio
The Commander
His life charts the
downfall of a career soldier in charge of marshaling the terrified
populace into the safety of the Metro system, to an outcast living on
the periphery of the subterranean society, contributing nothing and
living by his wits.
He was a career soldier
from a military family; one who had seen active combat many times and
earned both the respect of his superiors and the loyalty of the men
who served with him. After several foreign tours, he was stationed
back in Moscow, charged with passing on his combat experience to
metropolitan troops accustomed to ceremonial duties. The posting was
frustratingly uneventful, but it allowed him to live in barracks with
his wife and two daughters, after years in which he had missed out on
their first words and first steps while stationed abroad.
The
orders came in an hour before the bombs began to fall. An imminent
attack on Moscow. The metro system could only offer limited
protection. Preparations had to be made; panic had to be avoided.
He was ordered not to divulge the information prematurely – not
even to family members. And so when his designated station had been
prepared, he ordered his men to guard the doors, and he paced, alone,
deeper inside the empty station. His wife would be walking their
daughters home from school; the three of them, hand in hand, on the
streets of Moscow. Laughing together. He heard a growing roar
approaching the station, and he knew the time had come.
He gritted his teeth
and followed instructions; watching the desperate horde stream into
the station, waiting for the moment when the limit had been reached.
No matter how many were let in, the crowd behind them grew larger and
more frantic. And no matter how intently he focused on his orders,
he kept seeing flashes of his family in the faces of the strangers
sprinting past. It was a relief to fire a shot into the air – the
signal to his men that the gates had to be closed. The noise of the
crowd increased in pitch and intensity, and it was then that he saw
her: a young mother, newborn in her hands, just beyond the barrier
formed by the soldiers. Her voice was pleading, but her eyes,
focused intently on him, seemed filled with accusation. As he turned
away, holding the child to his chest, he could picture his wife
looking at him with those same accusing eyes. There was an inhuman
wail of despair behind him as the gates were finally closed.
From the moment the
explosions began above them, it was clear that the old regime, the
one to which he had given his loyalty and obedience, had crumbled.
The orders he had followed, the sacrifices he had made – all now
seemed meaningless. To the survivors, he was the man who shut the
doors too soon – the man who condemned their wives, husbands,
children, to a painful death. There was no escape from their gazes.
Ostracised, he survived
as a defiant outsider, resenting those who judged him and his
decisions. That resentment fuelled his determination to scavenge,
barter and beg for survival. But he’s getting old now, losing the
will to go on living out of spite – and as he does so, the old
faces and the old screams stream back into his mind – and above
all, the terrible sound as the gates of the station were closed.
The child he rescued
was taken from his hands soon after he descended into the Metro
station, and its identity has always been kept from him. As he
pleads for scraps, tired and resigned, he wonders if the young man
passing by without a glance could be the one. If he knew, would he
embrace him for the life he was gifted? Or curse him, for his lost
mother, for all of them left behind?
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