London

This short story follows the post war experiences of a soldier returning to London after fighting in the trenches in the first world war. Life and places are like a river, you can return but it will not be the same place that you come back to as it was when you left. This story looks at the way in which a returning soldier would have experienced those changes and the way in which London would have appeared to have had changed in the short time that he had left it. It explores his sense of betrayal, while he and his friends were being churned up by shell fire, beaten until there was nothing left but pieces of flesh adhering to the riveting on the trench. The London that would have greeted him upon his return would have seemed far from the genteel world that he had left in 1916. It would have seemed to change to such an extent, its changes reflecting the changes in himself.