I awoke once more to the acrid smell of burning flesh and rancid mud. The shelling which had begun the day before continued unabated – we hoped to bomb the Germans out of their trenches before going over the top that evening.

Stepping out into the waterlogged trenches, I was immediately greeted by the stagnating mud, which easily reached my waist. Being of short stature I was ill designed for life in the trenches. Something snagged at my trousers, deep below the sludge. Daring not to reach down I simply pushed past it; the lifeless fingers of the sunken twig gave, allowing me to pass.

My body shuddered, more with fearful anticipation, than cold. I was barely 19 and a pacifist by nature. The prospect of throwing myself over barbed wire and toward the ruthless Hun was not a pleasant one. I distracted myself with thoughts of travels I would surely have after the war ends, and of my books left behind; filled with exciting stories of times past. I leant against the sodden trench wall, guessing I had only slept a few hours. In my exhaustion and fear my mind began to slip.

My consciousness dipped; re-emerging as I hit the ground running.

I could feel the rounded cobbles under my feet as I ran, entering San Marco square as I reached the end of the ally. I looked on excitedly as the preparations for the nights pending Carnivale were made. Richly dressed men were already appearing to equip themselves with costumes for the coming commotion. Their tall powdered white wigs swayed precariously, from their perch atop their master’s upper class heads. Accompanying the men were beautiful Venetian ladies, decorated to within an inch of their lives. A sea of brilliant crimson and turquoise silk engulfed me as they passed. With only a few hours before the festivities were to begin I resigned to a dock beside the Grand Canal to wait.

A galley of mistrals heralded the beginning of the Carnivale. Wild music and dancing erupted as I hurried into the fray. A whir of animated faces swirled around me; grotesquely beautiful painted porcelain. They all wore elaborate masks, as they danced, to protect their identities from the implications of such a debaucherous night. Delicate white necks were momentarily bared as masked ladies threw back their heads and cackled. Through the chaos of the crowd, potential Casanova’s made a path; finding their unwitting victims and exploding upon them.

The wicked frenzy surrounding me became startling, suffocating. I began to choke on the smell of tainted smoke, as somewhere nearby a woman’s dress caught on fire; to a chorus of yet more cackling. Beside me a lavishly fashioned man drove his thumb violently into a plump pomegranate; piercing its armoured husk and flicking cerise juice over me. A large seed in my mouth tasted oddly salty, dissolving instantaneously.

I became trapped in the dancing. Dancers leapt about; falling, wounded. A whir of animated faces swirled around me, no longer beautiful but twisted and agonising. Confused; I stumbled forward, becoming tangled in the long ropes of tinsel, which lay across the floor.  The tinsel wrapped aggressively around my legs, biting and slashing into my flesh. All the while the intense fireworks display continued behind me. I turned to watch it and it seemed to be falling much closer to me and the other guests. Suddenly one exploded amongst the party. The glittering, colourful sparks that flew off it were not sparks but shrapnel and disintegrating bodies. Panicked I ran, falling due to the tinsel and scrambling up again.

I began to hear voices, though not those of the people around me – memories.

“Consider it a journey into the last great, undiscovered place. An adventure.”

“But Charlie” I replied “surely you can’t consider Verdun to be undiscovered. Besides, war goes against my ethics.”

“Oh stop being a pompous git and come. It will be fun Bernard.”

I remembered Charles, briefly, and it occurred to me that I had never visited Venice and that these strange events were perhaps something simpler.

My consciousness dipped; re-emerging as I hit the ground running.

Conversing the distance between trenches I could hear the screams of my fallen comrades like distant cackles. They leapt about, navigating a path and fell wounded. The warm blood of a soldier beside me sprayed my face, as his shoulder exploded under a barrage of machine gun fire. It fell on my mouth and lips – salty, dissolving instantaneously. Overhead the intense fireworks display of shelling continued, from both sides, and I met the Hun’s bayonet.