Bleeding. From a head wound. Hard to see.
Gotta get up. I gotta get up. Get up and keep on moving.
I try to get up. Fall down.
I crawl.
Somewhere there is shelter, has to be. Somewhere I find safety. Must.
There is mud on the ground I am crawling through. There are stones. Sharp beneath my legs. I cut my hand.
It is the head wound worries me.
Cuts and bruises heal. How serious is the head? It hurts like hell, and I am dizzy.
If I let myself think about it, it overwhelms. I cannot afford to. Got to move.
I keep on crawling. I reach a tuft of grass. Green. Their scent is fresh.
I fall into a ditch. Sliding down its sides and into shallow water. Cold.
It’s only once I’m in I realize just how thirsty I am. I drink to save my life. Then roll out of the water.
The ditch isn’t deep, but in my current state, it might as well be six feet and walls straight up. Impossible to climb. I close my eyes.
How long was I out? Unconscious and bleeding again how long?
The water cleaned my wounds. Sounds good in theory, but makes the bleeding worse. I don’t know how much blood I’ve lost. How much more I can afford.
I drink again. Then take some leaves from plants growing by the water. I press them to the head wound. I hold.
Listening to the insects buzzing by. Looking at the clouds. Beautiful.
No one is shooting. Nothing is exploding. Did we win? Did we lose? Do I care?
A bird begins to sing.
Time passes. Bleeding stops. I’m hungry. Have been for a while.
Getting up on my hands and knees, I move again. Have got to keep on moving.
I find some edible plants. At least I hope so. Anything tastes good when this hungry. If I get some kind of poisoning, so be it then. But I think I recognize the plant. It should be safe to eat.
After a while, I find myself able to stand. Can at least get out of the ditch, though walking is a challenge.
My head still aches like crazy. I’ve a feeling it’ll be that way for quite a while.
The battlefield is some distance behind me now. I look but don’t see anyone moving. No weapons pointed at me being fired. I guess it must have ended.
A better man than me would go and see if someone else survived. A smarter man than me would go make sure that no one did. I settle for what I see from here: no one moving, no one trying to kill me now.
I turn my back on all those corpses rotting in the sun. I turn away from the war was being fought for someone else’s gain. I take a step. I take another one. I walk to free myself from memory of it all, and just to stay alive.
Unknown to me, a weapon paints a target on my back. The light is bright. The way is clear. The shot, if taken, deadly.
The hand that holds the gun, is steady. And yet it’s undecided.
War will end.