“Stop it,” I croak.
“It must tear you down, huh?”
I look over at him, hardly begging him to continue with my current facial expression.
“Thinking that it’s little terrors like me; Rommel’s who are fighting this war. That the war isn’t being fought by people with great moral compasses and crusader ambitions. That the whole war isn’t one big good versus evil showdown. Instead, it’s little monster Rommel’s who like to kill, fighting it.
“You think I’m an animal, you think you’re better than me. But here’s a little secret, when that Buzz goes in you, you too, like the war as much as me. You too, are an animal. And that must be what really gets at you, huh? You’d be the type of guy that would sit smug and cush at his college, writing away about some war or event in a war. Write some cute essay about it all, and then you’ll turn it in, and everyone will politely applaud. Saying how they never looked at it that way, saying good job, that was really interesting.
“But here, you’re the person that should be writing about it, but you’re now also the person who can’t. Sucks, huh? If you were only born a few years after this, you would grow up in that cush life you used to have, untouched, and you would be writing about this war happening right now. But instead, you’re in it too. And some other Peter, some other faceless college kid will instead write about this. They’ll write about Khaf’Jadeed, won’t they? They’ll write about how it was wrong or something. Not really caring about those involved in it, just like you wrote about some war long ago in college yourself, never knowing anything about the guy who actually fought in it, and now that’s who you are, who we are. All you’ll ever amount to now, is just to be some half-thought-out course material for some college kid who has to do an assignment.”
You don’t have to listen to this Peter.
My hands grip my rifle tightly. Quiet, Cloud.
He’s wrong, you don’t…
Quiet Cloud!
“You’ll just be his little essay wrote late at night the day before, so he could turn it in time the next morning, and if you’re lucky, you’ll be his little A-plus. And everyone will politely applaud the kid. Saying how they never looked at it that way, saying good job, that was really interesting. And that’s it. That’s all they’ll ever remember of you, never actually you, but what you were, a faceless soldier, unknowingly to them, who just happened to be a part of it all. Just one of the sinners in the sin. Must really tear you down, huh?”
Rommel scratches at his neck underneath his collar, causing his necklace of rotten appendages to wiggle about. “Well maybe if you grow up a little, you can instead look at this war like a Rommel, and actually end up enjoying yourself.”
“Fuck. Shut up,” I say. “We may be animals, but the difference between us, is that I never chose to be. I was forced. You chose way before this war happened to be one, and if this war never did happen, you would have never had a reason to exist.”
He looks at me, then smiles as he slugs his XM over his shoulder to fall in after Blake calls. “You’re right. Now look where we are though. In a war, and you chose to be a scholar, but look again. Here, you, don’t have a reason to exist.”
“Where’s Private Peter!” says Blake.
I am still in the dike, my hands sweating against the rifle barrel.
I told you, Peter.
We can no longer visit the village as of recent rebel activity. My stash dwindles and I am forced to take from the med bag again, shooting up every chance I get. But it’s not the same as her, like I remember. She’s there, but I can tell it’s in a different way, as if she is angry I am reaching her through different means—it’s all I have though. And the one time I did have her I shoved her off. What have I done? And ever since Cloud disappeared after Yahir left, they torment me like they used to, asking why they’re dead, asking me to kill myself already… I don’t know why I haven’t yet.
We waste more days in the jungle. I waste more days waiting for her. The transition of duties becomes a blur. I am on sentry once again. I go to piss and scare myself. My belt loosened more than I intended revealing my hip. But it is just hip bone, with a layer of pale over it. What do my ribs look like? Then I realize one morning, the nightmares have stopped despite no increase of morphine use.
On our—tenth?—day I wake in the dead of night, the cold grasps all around me, penetrating the holes of my blanket and making the stars look bright and beautiful. I gaze at those silent spectators of this war. I feel terribly alone, afraid. Why? What more can this war brew forth that I have not been scared and scarred by? But yet I feel terribly alone, afraid. This was an entirely new sensation, different from the usual anxiety attacks, or anything. This feeling of being terrible alone, afraid, it grows, it grows into paranoia, into a real thing, a creature, it is crawling around inside of me—I have to get it out! It goes up my spine, into my trembling hands—get away! My whole body trembles. I have to get away! I break out of my sleeping bag and grab my morphine. The sentry and his light turns to me. I run. He yells and chases after me. He grabs and tackles me.
“Peter,” he says in a hush. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I look back, I feel like crying. “Isaac…”
I stop talking and stare at him. He looks back as if he understands. As if he too experiences the same thing every night. He speaks, “What is it man? A nightmare?”
It strikes me with a new force: the fear and paranoia. How I feel so terribly alone and afraid, it takes over with a new strength that I can’t control and I fall against his chest crying. “I, I haven’t had a good dream since… since we came here. And a nightmare for a few days now.” Isaac looks up at the stars, his face a gray shape under the dark jungle canopy.
I regain control from my coughing and spitting fit. I move over to sit, breathing in the cold air slowly. “I used to have nightmares when we first came here, horrible ones that terrified me. But I knew that if at least I had nightmares, it was me reminding myself that I don’t belong here, in this war. But now,” I pause as the terrible feeling of being alone, afraid, courses through my body as I come upon the truth. “Now, I don’t even have nightmares. I have become the thing I feared, hated! I became my nightmares Isaac! I’ve stopped rebelling and protesting the war and my fate even in my own mind, even in my own subconscious when I sleep, in my own dreams! I have become one with the monster. I am dead.”
After a while Isaac leans over to talk, “I haven’t had any dreams either. Instead my nightmares have become reality, that is, this war. That’s what you just told me right?” I don’t say anything. I roll over onto my back to look at the stars, they look back at me. The cold wind drying the tear trails from my cheeks. I fumble with the syringe in my pocket. It’s already loaded with a dose. Isaac goes on, “The only way I fall asleep now, is by giving up. I used to stay awake for the whole night, in agony and self-hate at what I done the day before. Killing people, fighting this war! Then I finally got sick, not just physically sick Peter, from lack of sleep, but my soul too, it was sick. So I stopped trying. I gave up because I couldn’t handle fighting the illness in my spirit after fighting in the war all day. And I do it every night, I just give up. It’s the only way I can fall asleep now.”
He slouches down near me and stares at the sky. “Shouldn’t you keep on duty, I’m sorry to have distracted you,” I say.