1939 on the eastern border, a million Soviet soldiers assemble. What chance did Finland have?
At daybreak when old God took a scalpel to the sky, we found ourselves far beyond the trenches, in lands darkened by the enemy. So, it was.
He raised his head, peering carefully through the early morning haze. Cobwebs brushed his hair. Delicate strands of silk in branches and parallels, with spheres of water balancing the rigging, like lanyards on a sailing ship or the floats of fishermen. Simo the Finn watched the many suns rise upon his final day; one beyond the other in an amber sky curving. Reflections mirrored these flames in stagnant water where mayfly nymphs and whirligigs paddled on the surface tension. Flat, stinking mats supported him, sponge mosses sucked him down and the dampness simmered his old bones, and the binoculars clamped to his eyes gave the appearance of a crustacean scanning prey, ready to bolt or scurry away. Deep inside Russia. Way beyond aid this party of three on deep reconnaissance moulded themselves into the contours of hollow or hummock. Acid smoked the grey of their uniform, sizzling undetected. Skin turned brown to green to red and their bodies became as one with the many coloured carpet. Sundews smeared a glue upon their sleeves and the bog, the endless shivering mire that was this land began the long, slow process of digestion. They were being eaten alive.