Hello, and welcome to Drabbletober. This is episode 2, season 3, for Friday the second of October 2026.
You Aren’t There
by Elizabeth Guilt
George fiddles with his dinner, and thinks about the Great War. How soldiers came home on leave, over a century ago, and found their families drunk on stories of glory and bravery. No-one wanted to hear that the fighting was muddy and brutal, horrific and terrifying.
Everyone knows war isn't like that anymore. It's fought by drones, it's fought at a distance. There's no trauma, now, of course.
Just sitting in a barracks pressing buttons?
More like computer games, really, isn't it?
Sounds rather fun, actually.
George buries his fork in his pasta, his thoughts with those long-dead British Tommies.