Trenchside Convergence

The frame catches us mid-investigation, boots hovering at the lip of churned mud while faint heat lifts in narrow ribbons. Smoke rises not from a blaze but from the ground itself, thin and disciplined, as if marking a rendezvous point agreed on long ago. A corrugated panel leans left, its flaking letters—Where is Vojta?—scratched with care rather than panic. That care matters. Someone expected us to read it at eye level. Evidence clusters with methodical intent: a dented helmet abandoned near a split stump, red poppies puncturing the gray, boards slumped like tired witnesses. The field stretches cold and watchful, winter pressing breath into the soil; the smoke threads glow warm, defiant, playful even, as if daring pursuit. I catalog the angles and distances, the way paths converge toward the sign. This place invites meeting, not mourning. Yet Vojta does not appear. Did he leave through the heat, or does the heat wait for him still?