Soldiers overcome, unleashing legends,
I hand the paper to Isaac. He looks at me confused for a moment, till he unfolds it and smiles. He takes a long drag from his ancient as he taps the pen against the paper.
The loss of Julian, and all the others I’ve seen die today, brood in the well of my mind, my heart of hearts, but it is not with despair anymore, but resolve. There is good to be done here. Fellow brothers to save—like today. The greater tragedy would be to let Julian’s death rest in vain while I tried to run away or give up, than if I were to hold my ground and fight for the cause he laid his life down for. I must fight now, for this planet, for him. For Creon. For Earth. I should have never doubted the Party.
The sun sets, casting a barrage of orange beams onto the gold wheat stalks of the war perished countryside. They look strangely beautiful under this high. All I can do is accept it for what it is, this world—life.
A pretty existence in a fucked up reality.
XV
First night of guard duty on the outskirts of Tionem.
I sit on top of a pillbox made out of sandbags and wood slabs, the town’s suburbs behind me but under blackout to avoid bombing. Small red flashes the size of a fingernail pop up in the distance ahead of me from the front, followed by a feint echoing boom. I squish my hands inside my crotch to keep them warm, my XM resting underneath my right armpit.
It suites me fine. I’ve hardly slept anyway. Lying awake at night and being the only one up you hear things that no one else does. You see things in the dark that confuse the realms between real and dreaming. You learn little truths about people you couldn’t any other way.
Early in the morning on our second night, I flop and fidget to try and get comfortable so I can fall asleep again. Isaac walks into our circle of sleeping bags back from guard duty. He goes to Blake’s bag to wake him for his shift. “Sergeant,” whispers Isaac. “Sir, it’s time to rotate.” Then I hear Isaac yelp. I peer over the front folds of my bag to look. Isaac is kneeling over Blake’s face, his hands holding tightly around an arm. “Sir, it’s Isaac, let go,” he says in a growl.
“Don’t let her see me,” says Blake.
“What, you’re sleep talking—I promise I won’t,” says Isaac.
“I don’t want to fight anymore,” mutters Blake. Isaac tries to remove his arm. “Did you hear me?” says Blake, his arm stiffening in resistance and his hand still clenching Isaac’s vest.
“Sir?”
“I don’t want to fight, you take over.”
“Are you awake—“
“Why wouldn’t she take her? It’s not mine, but I have it. Will you keep her away?”
“Yes, sir.”
Blake’s hand reclines and it pats the air before Isaac. “Sir?” Isaac waits for a few minutes by his side, then shakes his shoulder. “Sergeant, your shift.”
Blake snorts then leans up to his waist. A light emits from his control panel illuminating them both. Isaac’s face is pale and drenched in sweat. “You just finish jogging? Never mind, thanks Private. You get some rest now.”
Isaac rises alongside Blake. “Sir.”
Blake grabs his XM then turns around facing Isaac. “Yes?”
They stare at each other for a few moments. “Good night.”
Blake grunts, “Same.”
Isaac enters his bag and pats his sleeve over his face. Blake walks away towards the parameter to guard.
Thomas wraps a scarf around his face to fall asleep, the same one I always see him bite on before combat. One night it slides off his face from the wind. I crawl out to retrieve it. It’s hard to make out in the dark, so I shine a light on it underneath my sleeping bag. It’s a brown scarf with a white border. Two tawny horses rear on each side, and in the center it says Boy Scouts of America Georgia Ridding Summer Camp. On the right end, stained with his saliva where he sucks on it, is a faded badge: Horsemanship achievement. I crawl back out and place the scarf neatly on his chest. His large hands come up to feel it, where they mold the scarf into a neat ball and then they disappear under his blanket.
Vance is always jotting down stuff in his red notebook. I open his sack to grab it on the third night. I return to my field house and turn on the lights. I flip through the pages, most of it hard to read—he has worse penmanship than me. I get to an entry that says Jericho, and read.
Peter took the death of Julian hard. Crying and puking everywhere. At first I couldn’t understand why. Thought he was weak. Did he not get his dose? Then the buzz ended and I cried into my pillow like a bitch. Why don’t they trust us? Keep our emotions hidden. That little girl, it could have been Lana. Lana how are you? Lana, what’s it like over there? Why didn’t she get rid of it when we could have? It was only the second month. Why didn’t she? Why did she try and fuck things up more. Why won’t she let me see you? Lana, Lana, do you even know you have a dad? Do you know he wishes you weren’t born, and that he hates himself? Do you know he won’t fuck another girl ever again. That I love and hate you. Lana, I can’t ever have a kid now. Lana I love you.
I fold his notebook up and place it back into his sack. I feel wrong, but for some reason now, I know I can trust these guys with my life.
“Everyone up!” says Blake.
I was already up. Not willingly. I haven’t slept well since Tionem—my mind won’t leave me alone. Our unit crawls out of their sleeping bags, and gathers around a makeshift outdoor kitchen of a few gas stoves and crates of supplies for breakfast.
“Eat and pack,” says Blake. “We’re moving out today, back to Jericho.”
I extend my hand grabbing the pot of oatmeal being passed around and add some to my plastic bowl. It’s the fifth day of guard duty out on the outskirts of Jericho, but now we’re pulling back as the Army pushes up the front line, removing the need for a reserve in our area. Will we be deployed again? Shit, on the front?
“Wonder what we’re doing back in the city,” says Vick to no one in particular.
“Will be more stuff to do there than here, that’s for sure,” says Vance.
“If we aren’t just shipped back out,” says Tommy.
The unit is quiet. So I wasn’t the only one worried.
“Well,” says Isaac, “I’m gonna go find some coffee at HQ for the last time.”
“That guy from Bravo can sure make a cup,” says Alex. We mutter in agreement, and most leave to follow Isaac.
I crumble up my sleeping bag into an ad hoc pillow, and rest my head against it as it becomes quiet once more. Yet I can’t sleep, but I am still exhausted. I used to hate sleeping, it’s a waste of time in our tiny finite lives. But here, it’s an escape. But even here, I am even denied that little solace. What the hell is keeping me up then? Anxiety? Sure, I have some, but my weariness far outweighs it. What else can it be?
I feel like I am residing inside a corpse for my body has shut down, surrendered, from the lack of rest. Stuck to sink here inside the mud till I become it. But my mind has taken this collapse, this surrender, instead as an opportunity to suck the last remnants of my tangible energy to further supply its abstract angst, giving this corpse a zombiefied conciseness: I. How does one’s physical energy become converted into metaphysical processes? Where is the switch, the transmitter, that permits the real recourses of my body: calories, bone, muscle, flesh, to be consumed by the transcendental? Where can I point and say, there, that’s the source, so that I can turn it off. So that my mind can stop keeping me awake and sucking dry what’s left of me. So that I can be left alone and just sleep.