Silence. Perhaps, were it not for the ringing in my ears. Somehow it seems to accentuate my own thoughts till it feels like I am shouting to myself.
Not someone I want to hear. Not now.
The ringing starts to fade and the familiar etude of intermittent gunfire resumes. A desert wind picks up, dragging away with it the dust cloud thrown up over me. Every breath a torture as the jagged particles of sand rips through my lungs. I force my eyes open, straining to see past the fast disappearing veil of dust, to see a terrain changed. What had been a level plateau just moments ago, I lie now at the tip of a fresh scar in this barren landscape. A gaping crater torn open by a mortar shell, black smoke still swirling up from the scorched remanents half buried in the blasted sand.
Something slides down the near slope of the crater, gathering momentum. A body. I knew him, though his name I knew not. A stranger, yet a friend. My comrade, my brother. A field medic, or so much his arm badge told me. I had but a glimpse of him, as he flung himself over me, the piercing whistle of the incoming mortar shell seeming to freeze time around us. His eyes acknowledge my look of disbelief, knowing that perhaps I would have done the same for him. Even now, as I watch his body roll away from me, his eyes still haunt me. For in his eyes I saw a strange mix of content and weariness, a familiarity that he shared with these war torn fields and yet, the heavy toll this familiarity had come to bear on him. Or was I seeing in his eyes what I felt within myself?
Not someone I want to hear. Not now.
The ringing starts to fade and the familiar etude of intermittent gunfire resumes. A desert wind picks up, dragging away with it the dust cloud thrown up over me. Every breath a torture as the jagged particles of sand rips through my lungs. I force my eyes open, straining to see past the fast disappearing veil of dust, to see a terrain changed. What had been a level plateau just moments ago, I lie now at the tip of a fresh scar in this barren landscape. A gaping crater torn open by a mortar shell, black smoke still swirling up from the scorched remanents half buried in the blasted sand.
Something slides down the near slope of the crater, gathering momentum. A body. I knew him, though his name I knew not. A stranger, yet a friend. My comrade, my brother. A field medic, or so much his arm badge told me. I had but a glimpse of him, as he flung himself over me, the piercing whistle of the incoming mortar shell seeming to freeze time around us. His eyes acknowledge my look of disbelief, knowing that perhaps I would have done the same for him. Even now, as I watch his body roll away from me, his eyes still haunt me. For in his eyes I saw a strange mix of content and weariness, a familiarity that he shared with these war torn fields and yet, the heavy toll this familiarity had come to bear on him. Or was I seeing in his eyes what I felt within myself?
Powered by ScribeFire.
2 comments:
nice stuff.. pretty good poetry too.. keep writin man..
Thanks dude... 8)
Post a Comment