They’ve run out of green helmets and German accents, so there will be no more films. The trenches full, each eruption stitched with grass. There are no more pistols wavering, no more reluctant boys learning to be killers. The operators at their switchboards pull their blouses from high waisted skirts; they go home, play their records, hear the needle and groove’s static before the first notes sound. There are no more blonde women with red lipstick left to walk slick cobblestones alone. The run in her stocking says that the wars have ended. An old man wipes a soiled handkerchief across his brow, smiles at nothing. The extras line up near the river at the edge of town. They return ripped clothing and cracked jackboots in quiet piles. Their guns have rusted. A girl walks her red bicycle down a dirt path where casings were once scattered like seeds. Her humming plays across a stand of wheat.
