He had read all about it, of course, and all the sacrifices that had been made, all the lives that had been lost, but he thought back to that day in May 1945 and it put his current situation in perspective.
Shakespeare had lived through troubled times, that he knew, but he remembered the day that he had first read about the war that had been so destructive and so viscious. It was still in his future, as well as the past, such was the nature of the situation that the Bard found himself in, and he was horrified by the atrocities.
London looked far different to how he knew it anyway, but he looked at pictures of the rubble, of homes destroyed and Shakespeare thought back to his own lodgings in Southwark. His time was a far different period, that he knew, but was that destroyed over those six years, he wondered, or did it stand tall amongst the wreckage of the surroundings?
Shakespeare’s interest in the future had proved sobering when he read what was to come. In ten years he would shuffle off the mortal coil and he had seen when his wife and daughters would pass, and that he would leave no ancestors to walk on England’s fair land, but it paled in comparison to those years he had read about, and the lives that would be lost.
In the six or seven weeks since he had been in Chicago, time had passed differently for the Bard, and he had lost track of how long he had been confined to the house, but he knew that it mattered not one iota when placed side by side with the sacrifices that had been made by those that came after him, or was that before him?
He never understood that bit.
Shakespeare cast his pale blue eyes over the black and white footage that played on the laptop in front of him but as the tears began to flow, he also felt optimism running through his veins.
Too often had he seen, experienced and read about the evil that men do, but as he watched a black and white picture of the Dover coastline magically transform into a colorful landscape, hope washed over him.
For six long years, countless people on his fair isle had been bombarded but they never gave up, never gave in, and one day they had met again, they danced and drank and smiled and laughed again, and Shakespeare knew that what he was going through was so insignificant compared to what had passed before. He had been asked to stay in the house to protect himself, and he had experienced rough days when he found cabin fever setting in, but it was only for a fraction of the time that the World had lived in fear 80 years before.
If those people, those wonderful, unbreakable forebearers of England, had manged to smile after six long years then what was staying at home for a few weeks?
He thought about his family and his friends on a daily basis, and when he would see them again, and he thought about England, the blessed plot, that never did and never would lie at the proud foot of a conquerer. As Shakespeare looked upon those White Cliffs, he knew he was lucky for the world he was living in, his family and peers were still alive and that, at the end of it, they would, someday, meet again.
Dale Harrison 