War Will End

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.

Wounded

Warm. Wet. Running down my side.

“How bad is it?”

Shit.

Wrong question.

I shouldn’t have asked that one. For now the pain hits me. It hits me hard.

“You’ll live.”

“Whatever you say, sir,” I manage. “Whatever you say.”

I don’t know if it’s the pain, or if it is the bloodloss, but everything grows dim. I’m passing out again.

I remember coming to a couple of times during transport. Slipping in and out of awareness into dreams, and into darkness.

One time I thought I saw you there. In the transport. But that must’ve been just another dream.

I’m awake at hospital now. The nearest proper one. Three days’ journey from where I was wounded. I haven’t been this far from the frontline in eighteen months.

They say I developed a fever. For a while there they weren’t sure if I really would pull through or not.

I’m on the mend now. The fever’s gone. The wound no longer infected it’s healing nicely. Another scar for me to carry all my life. I do not mind. I’m just so glad to be breathing. That is all that matters now. I’m just so glad to be breathing.

Two weeks, they say. Two weeks I’ll rest here, and then back to the battle it is.

I think I’ll rather enjoy this two weeks of mine. After eighteen months in the front line, I feel kind of justified in getting a break. Just wish it didn’t have to hurt so much to get here.

Don’t get me wrong. I’d never shy away from doing my duty. But still, eighteen months of war will get to you. A moment of rest, of peace and quiet in the beautiful surroundings of an old hospital like this one, it begins to feel like heaven.

I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated a place and a moment quite as much as I do this one here and now. Each breath I take, it’s like being born again.

There’s flowers in a vase near the door to my room. The room I share with only two others. The colors of the flowers are amazing. That such beauty can still exist in this world of war and pain and suffering. I spend hours looking at those flowers in the vase. Absorbing all their beauty.

Seems awful now, but when the war started, I was happy.

This was my chance to get away. This was my escape.

From the moment I enlisted, he couldn’t touch me. He couldn’t hold me any longer. My life belonged to the military now.

I expected to die very fast. I was okay with that. I’d much rather be dead in the service of the kingdom, than be kept alive for your entertainment even one more day.

Little did I know I’d turn out to be so good at war.

All the hatred I felt towards you, all the anger I could never express, I channeled it all towards the enemy. It made me an efficient killer.

All the need to survive, to stay one step ahead of you and all your games, it had honed my strategic skills to perfection. How ironic I had you to thank for my success at war.

Two weeks of rest and recuperation, before I would return. Two weeks of peace and quiet. I loved it all.

The night before I was to return to active duty I held the hand of a dying man. It wasn’t the first time I had done so. Unlikely that it would be the last.

In the morning I returned to my room. What few belongings I had would have to be packed.

I stopped by the vase of flowers. I breathed in their scent. Inhaled their beauty.

Standing there I overheard a conversation. They were talking about the new captain of my company. A city-dweller. A rich man who had bought himself a commission. Paid for his rank with money instead of brave action.

I didn’t pay much attention. This sort of thing happened all the time. Bigshots wanted to play at war, until they saw its reality, and swiftly bought their way out again. Just too bad this one had to come to my company to get his taste of action. Wish he’d gone someplace else.

But then they said his name.

Your name.

And everything stopped.

The flowers filled my field of vision. An echo in my ears, your name.

A thought.

This is war… where people get killed all the time.