• It’s over. Two years of pain and misery is over. Two years of pure hell over. I remember all the men at my side etched into my mind. The countless hours spent praying it would all end and my scars would heal, over. The blood and sweat drawn from the deep pit in my soul. No more. I’m free. As soon as they drove the stake into the ground, I remembered. The lost and burned souls of the doomed men in the harsh winter are floating in my conscience. I was so jealous. I wanted to die so badly. There were days at a time I doubted Gods existence at all. If God was there, wouldn’t he be merciful? Wouldn’t he stop the splinters and blood? The aching? After a while, the pain became out of body, I watched myself labor. The hunger, the pain, I remembered.
    Praying never helped. The scars became worse. I cried. I broke the rhythm of the hammers going into the ground. They pitied me. I was so young, but I had to help my family somehow. I was fifteen when it started, a weak thing, not even a man. I had to hide myself, I was the only girl. And the pay I received barely helped at all. It was so little, and I rarely saw my mothair(mother), or my hathair(father). I was betrothed before I left, but I know an ill fate has befallen my, muirnín (beloved). When I shed the name Fiona McNair and became `Aron McNair, I watched him die from the influenza.
    Sometimes I dreamed of my childhood in Ireland, and wanted to be with the green and rolling ocean, but I returned to reality. It was over. I watched the president smile and congratulate us, the Irish at least. I smile an empty smile, and remember the nights I forgot God and prayed to the Bandia from my home religion, my goddess.
    The hours spent keeping rhythm, singing the same tune, crying the same tears. The memories are old scars that will probably never heal. Like the ones from the spikes going into me the first few months working. The dull blows of the hammers. The long, sleepless nights. I remembered.
    The president turns to me. I look at my feet. I remember the other men laughing when they heard my small chirp as we sang the tunes.
    The president turned to me, and shook my hand. I looked at him, and hated him. He made me hurt, leave my body, and be scared. But I forgave him. I knew he was just doing it to help; he didn’t want to hurt me. I spoke softly, in my accented voice.
    “Don’t thank me.”
    “Why not, child?” he looked grim.
    “They did more than I did, thank them.” I said, knowing if a pale child said something, he would say something to the Chinese men who helped. He said nothing, and wandered away to tell the other Irish men of his gratitude.
    The men I had mentioned spoke in their own twittering tongue, and I remembered mine. The language I had mostly forgotten. The few words I remembered in Gaelic were the pet names I had given my friends.
    I had moved here at a young age. I have grown here, when the language was still strange on my tongue. Then I forgot. Only small hints of my accent remain. I’m not Irish anymore. I’m American; I have given my sweat and blood for her.
    I am so glad it’s over, but I can’t help think, it’s turned me into a different person. As I board the train to see my muintir (family) again, I thank Bandia (goddess) for letting me live, and letting the scars mostly healed this new breath of life is wonderful.
    Though these memories are painful, and I’ll never e the same, I can breathe. They will never kill my breath again.
    My family notices my changes, my empty smiles, my unwillingness to touch anyone, or show emotion. My silence. They say nothing, but I see their faces fall as I shove the small amount of pay I earned into hathair’s hand. It’s too little, barely anything. it’s over, `Aron, remember that….
    Nightmares…I hate them. The pain trusting it’s self in my body again, the jeering, the failure. It’s over, why won’t it leave? Why does it hurt so? I didn’t cry as I watched the others die, why their deaths draw my emotion now. Make it stop. Why is it so hard to let go. It’s over. Two years of pure hell is over. It’s so hard to breathe. My life is a swirling nightmare. I don’t know how to fix it. I run my hand down my scared face. I can let go, by deciding. But it’s so hard. Each memory is a part of me. I’m seventeen…why can’t I let go?
    The memories rattle through me like pitiless ocean waves, sweeping away all other thoughts. Forgetting is but a beautiful dream, one that I hold onto after I wake up, but soon forget. I wish this was the nightmare you wake from, and don’t remember after breathing steadily for a few minutes, but it isn’t. it never will e. I am no longer myself, just an old empty shell scattered on the beach.
    I miss Ireland, what I remember, anyway. The rolling hills and crashing ocean repeat in my mind. It was so much less complicated. I hurt so much now. Please, Bandai, help me? Make it so I don’t hurt…
    I don’t feel the pain rattling through me anymore, but it remains. I don’t resent my muintir (family) for sending me, I don’t resent them for making me do it. I resent nothing. I can see the smoke from the new train go by, and for the first time in ages, I smile. I breathe the fumes in. I helped with this, it’s amazing. I run down the railroad with the train, I am the train on the track. I am America’s memory, a spirit. I am your new breath.