Hell

I lay dead in the jungle, surrounded by a pool of blood. Then, the blood started to seep back into my bullet wounds and I was alive. My buddies were all around me looking worried and I wanted to speak to them, but I was too weak. Suddenly I coughed, and the blood that was on my face flew into my mouth and down my throat. Wait, that wasn’t right. Sharky, the medic, was holding me and he looked frightened, but he put on a brave face and said, “!em ot klat ,no emoC !snikneJ em htiw yatS !snikneJ.” I had no idea what he had said, but suddenly he was running away, backwards. They all were! Where were they going? Why would they leave me there?

One of my buddies stopped and leveled his rifle at a dead bogie in front of me and the bogie must not have been quite dead, because suddenly he was on his feet without even seeming to stand up. I saw a flash from my buddy’s rifle, but instead of shooting the enemy dead, the gun sucked the bullets back out of him, and I watched as he healed right in front of my eyes. That’s not what was supposed to happen. Then the bogie turned his gun on me.

I felt a hot wet trickle across me chest as the last of my blood surged back into my body. Behind me, someone called “!snikneJ” and suddenly I flew to my feet. I was looking down in horror when bullets flew out of my chest and into my enemy’s flashing muzzle. I don’t know how, but I was healed. No wounds. No tears. Nothing. The bogie must have gotten freaked out by that, because he ran off backwards into the bush.

At this point, I knew something was fucked around me, but no one else seemed to care. They just stood out in the clearing passing the canteen around. Sawyer was taking a leak. They were smiling, laughing, chatting, but nothing they said made sense. It was all warped… backwards. Memories flashed back to me. This is what we’d been doing before the attack. Before I got shot. Before I… died.

Things were flashing back faster than they’d gone forward. Whole days passed by in a blur. Patrolling the bush, scrapes, mosquitoes, endless slogs through the mud and bramble, gunfire at night, fleeting glimpses of the enemy during the day, it all zoomed by like a passing breeze. I stood in a burning village, hands covered in soot, face stained by tears. I saw my friends slaughter emaciated peasants armed with machetes or ancient rifles. Then, blur again. Walking, trudging from village to village, looking for weapons, looking for people who didn’t belong, never staying too long in one place. Then I was in the one place where we made the mistake of lingering. I felt the dirt on my hands as we dumped a young girl into a shallow grave. I saw what we did to our “brothers” who raped her to death. Then the blur again, towns, bases, whores on the street, artillery shells falling in the distance, getting off the boat, then, nothing. Blackness, emptiness.

So now I sit and stare into the darkness, wondering where the rest of my life went. My family, my friends. Why can’t I remember them? They must be out there, but then, maybe they aren’t. Maybe I am a child of war and strife, no friends but my brothers, no love but love for battle, no lust but bloodlust. Wait, white text… “Please be kind, please rewind?” Huh? Where am I? When am I? Who am I? What was I talking about? Where..wha…

Uh, I guess I must have zoned out for a bit, they told me I’d get jittery at first. It’s probably this stupid boat making me seasick. Yeah, that’s it. Nothing to be nervous about, I’m part of the baddest band of brothers that ever lived, and we’re going to teach those little bastards why you don’t mess with the United States of Fucking A. Ooh-RA! Now why does it feel like I’m forgetting something important?

Little Blue Dot

I followed the big blue arrow for days until finally I arrived at the squiggly black line of the front. What I saw there shocked me to the very core. Our little blue dots were outnumbered by their little red dots almost two to one and casualty figures were skyrocketing. The force depletion was terrible.

My unit was assigned the task of leading the way for a smaller blue arrow to cut across the enemy’s flank. After our little blue dot had gone deep into enemy territory, other little blue dots would follow our little blue arrow and drive a wedge between the little red dots on the left part of the squiggly line and the little red dots on the right part of the squiggly line. The plan was crazy and we all knew it, but our orders were clear and we had no choice but to follow them. Besides we reasoned, young fools that we were, it was better to lose our unit in one glorious dash against the enemy flank than to sit lamely at the squiggly line while attrition whittled us to nothing.

The plan was doomed almost from the start. As we made our approach, the little red dots started shifting position and we didn’t know why. Then I saw the little black boxes and my heart sank to my shoes. Fortifications! Damn, how had we missed that? It didn’t matter now. With one piece of bad intel, our job had gone from difficult to damn near impossible, but we couldn’t turn back. Not when there were half a dozen little blue dots behind us that needed the path clear. Not when there were so many red dots just waiting to rain down upon us in our flight. No, we had to press on. We had take the little black boxes from the vicious red dots. There was no other choice.

I’ll never forget the nauseating mix of fear and courage I felt as I rushed toward the little black boxes. The little blue arrow at my back didn’t feel so little now. Now, it was the biggest thing in the world. Nothing mattered more, and the little red dots hiding behind their little black boxes looked so tiny in comparison. My eyes did not notice the horrible attrition all around me. My ears ignored the screeches and booms of the force multipliers crashing down upon us. My nose paid no heed to the heady scents brought on by rising casualties and shrinking morale. I saw only the sights of glory. I heard only the sounds of victory. I smelled only the smells of peace. Only later, in my dreams, in my nightmares, would I remember what came next.

I remember seeing a little red arrow rising in the distance. I remember thinking how much larger it was than my puny blue arrow. Then I saw where it was coming from. They had come from the blue side of the squiggly black line. Our front had fallen. The long line of blue dots had been crushed. Then I was fleeing. Our disorderly retreat quickly turned into a route, and there was nothing I could do but watch in horror as little blue dots disappeared around me. I don’t know how my little blue dot made it out of there, and sometimes I wish we hadn’t because, after that day, none of us felt much like being a little blue dot anymore.