Blackstar

Elijah Mazursky, A reconnaissance Infantryman he was, dismounted in Iraq and Afghanistan. A C-130 crash on the airfield is what started the man's descent into madness. 

"Take down the fans," Elijah said to his mother, "Take down all the fucking fans, they're making too much noise!" He moved quickly, dismantling all of the ceiling fans around the home he shared with his mother and little brother. The sounds of the fan had already set off into Elijah's nervous system, It was fight or flight now. He stepped outside onto the balcony, pulling out a single cigarette from his pocket. A lighter is what he needed now, a lighter to light the damn cigarette. Where was--

"You are a hero," read on the surface of it. It was a gift from a girl who liked him. The girl was his neighbor, always clinging to Elijah instantly without a single breath in between. A lighter with a caption encouraging his accomplishments, just what the doctor ordered. A simple gesture that would be forever registered in Mazursky's mind.

The ambition for fighting wars was discovered as a kid. Elijah studied the actions and hardships of Pascal Cleatus Poolaw, a Kiowa who served during World War II. It wasn't the forty-two medals and citations that intrigued him. It wasn't the four Silver Stars, Five Bronze Stars or even the Purple Hearts given for each war. What interested Elijah was that Pascal joined the War to shield the innocence of his loved one, only to be killed while pulling one of his own to safety. Elijah wondered if it was all worth it and by the time he was old enough to discover for himself, war was his ultimate decision.

"Damn!" Elijah glanced at his now singed fingers, dropping the lighter from his hands and squinching his eyes through the pain. A memory began to surface through his unsteady mind.

Deployed again, it was Elijah's last time in Afghanistan. His tank was hit and had exploded, killing all but one, Elijah. Picking up the dislocated limbs and severed organs, he began to cry out. "I'm gonna fix you, I'm gonna fix this," crawling over to his deceased brother, he placed the organs over his lifeless body. "I'm gonna put you back together again, just like Humpty Dumpty man." He thought about wrapping the man's body parts in cellophane, carrying them all the way home. An actual Purple Heart in his hands, what would his mother say?

Discharged on psychological grounds, Elijah was earning minimum wage working at an old tire shop. He refused to believe that he was mentally inept, it was the officials and "professionals" that refused to consider life-altering diseases to produce symptoms of mental disorders. He'd developed an alcoholic trauma, blackout drinking and waking up in jails, the loss of his reputation, his career, the loss of himself. He thought that there was a complete lack of emotion within the system somehow, general apathy. 

Most of his own emotions had already become absent with the matter, with the exception of one. 

Anger.

As if to try to establish or reestablish control, anger was always one of Elijah's consistent features. The constant shift between being emotionally numb and having intense anxiety was almost too suffocating at times. Elijah's anger was destructive and unhealthy. His anger caused harm, not only to himself but to others as well.

"You're just a brainwashed recruit running on autopilot!" Elijah had been playfully sparring with his little brother. They were throwing light punches and making slight insults at one another, then as time went on, it became more intense between the two. Elijah began to apply more pressure to his punches towards his little brother's abdomen, reminiscing about his subjected torture during the time he served. 

Elijah was kept in an underground cell. He was questioned in a language he didn't understand while having his hands and feet tied. Elijah shared a room with fifty-nine individuals who were all subjected to the same methods of torture. The prisoners were hung from the ceiling and beaten with iron rods for hours. Gangrene became a norm, Elijah could smell the rotting flesh of the malnourished and brutally beaten men. It all excited the same emotion in Elijah, his anger. He'd believed his rage is what kept him alive through it all. 

"Another blackout?" Elijah was back on his balcony, hovering over his fallen cigarette and lighter. Nothing had changed, nothing was different, nothing--

His brother... 

His brother's body was sprawled across the tiles of the balcony's floor. Was he asleep? No. He was going into convulsions. A seizure, he was having a seizure. Was it a joke? Elijah made an attempt to laugh at his brother's supposed prank until his frothing at the mouth started. It was declared peritonitis at the hospital, his appendix had been torn resulting from the beating Elijah had subconsciously given him. 

Like clockwork, the original events of Elijah's disturbed memory sequence began to run smoothly. The death of his brother was not in the present, it was in the past. The balcony he'd been standing on did not belong to him nor did he have a home he shared with his family. Elijah was homeless, after being publicly disowned by his mother. He'd been forced to leave his job, having to avoid trial, leaving his previous life behind. 

He's a murderer," they all say. No one understood, no one cared. But what would they know? After being put through captivity and forced to murder, only to return home to the feeling of isolation. That world had went on without Elijah, the people in it had learned to live without him.

Elijah was alone, just as he'd been during the C-130 crash, just as he'd been during the tank explosion. "What was it all for?" He questioned aloud as he pulled a lighter from his pocket to light a cigarette. 

"You are a hero," reads on the surface.

"Am I?" Elijah Mazursky asked himself.

"Am I really?"