The Civilian

WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS GRAPHIC VIOLENCE AND IMPLIED SEXUAL VIOLENCE. PLEASE BE ADVISED.

        “Grandpa, we are studying the California War of Independence in our history class, and we must do a report. Mom told me to ask you about it. Here I am, asking. So, what do you know about that?” Brandon asked me with an air of reluctance. Through the video chat screen, I could see he was rolling his eyes asking me despite his eyes being half-hidden behind his long, curly bangs. It’s hard to tell what the hell his eyes are doing past those bangs covering them. How he could see past those bangs, I do not know. But his acne-filled face tilted enough to know how he felt: am I going to have to listen to another old man story?

               “Oh now, when you need something, you want to talk to Grandpa,” I snidely chided, hoping to fill the teenager with guilt over the fact he rarely ever video chats me just to see how I’m doing. But, I had forgotten that typical teenager emotional intelligence. Brandon’s face just gave me a blank expressionless stare. At least I thought it was a blank expressionless stare. After a few seconds of palpable awkward silence, I moved on. Leaning forward slightly in my leather chair, I folded my hands together. “Well Bran Bran, what do you know about the war? What have they taught you in school?”

               Brandon sighed, took a second, and I wondered if somehow my interrogatory caught him off guard. Then, with all the excitement of a child who had been told to finish up his chores, he flatly recited the facts as if he were reading from a cheat sheet of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica website: “A bunch of people in Southern California got upset about some stuff the United States government was doing back when that was a thing and began bombing US government buildings. The government brought in a bunch of tanks to wipe out the pissed off people, which made even more pissed off people. Also, they shot a bunch of protestors too in Los Angeles, I think. Then the US kept pouring military in, but the rebels were beginning to be armed by China and Russia. Then Britain came to help out the US and it turned out to be mess and a bunch of British got killed and the people that supported the war were elected out of Parliament. The rebels eventually took California and declared independence and that is why they are playing as a football team in the World Cup later this year.”

               “With such descriptive imagery like that, it’s a wonder how you are even on the verge of graduating secondary school,” I thought. Or at least I thought I thought it. I might have muttered it aloud. My filter tends to go when I am upset. Brandon gave me no response, but I spoke frustatingly.

“You mean to tell me you never heard any of the stories I told you? The armies using the Santa Ana winds to create wildfires to trap and kill British troops? The false flag aerial bombing of Oroville Dam that killed a bunch of civilians? The rebels launching an offensive on the Christmas holiday that killed thousands of British troops near Modesto and turning the tide of the war? My own evacuation story? Do you listen to none of it?!” I was indignant to the point of almost yelling at Brandon.

“I don’t think you ever told me any of that,” Brandon replied meekly.

I’m pretty sure I said out loud “I sure hope I raised your mother better than I raised you!” Again, I can’t remember if I just thought it or if I stated it. I took a deep breath, leaned back, and sighed. “Alright, Brandon, I hope you listen to the story this time…”

***

I remember leaning against the cobblestone basement that the church had built during the Cold War. Church had always been a spiritual sanctuary for me, but here it was a physical sanctuary for many of us in the fields of Fresno County. There were about 100 people packed into a basement designed to comfortably fit maybe a third of that amount. The only light was from candles and the one-foot window slits to let in natural light. Power had been cut off for some time now after the rebel bombing raids on power infrastructure. The air reeked of a mixture of sweat, urine, and fecal matter as people were too afraid to leave the makeshift community bunker to take care of their bodily needs and there was no place to store the diapers. There was a ladies’ restroom and a mens’ restroom, but there were too many people with nervous bowels to keep the restroom clean. The air was recycled in case of nuclear fallout, so ventilation did little to eliminate to stench.

A loud boom erupted, causing the room to shake from the sonic blast. The loud noise startled the children and many infants began crying as the pressure from the sonic boom lay on their delicate ears.

“That one was probably about, what, seventy yards from here, you say?” a male voice matter-of- factly asked without any fear or shock in his voice.

“Nah, it was clearly eighty yards!” another man replied. It had become a game to figure out how far the explosion or gunfire was based upon the volume of the noise.

I barely paid attention to the other people. I was busy staring at a photo of her saved to my phone. My friend, Ashley. Her silky-smooth blonde hair that you just wanted to run your fingers through. Her cheeks and dimples that just made your heart skip that beat when she smiles. The chestnut eyes that could gaze into your soul. How my heart yearned to be with her instead of with all the other people trapped in the church. I loved her, even if she saw me as her best friend. At the time, I thought that the Lord had placed it in my heart to be her future husband.

Unfortunately, she lived on a ranch that was separated from my family’s ranch by about ten miles. The main roads connecting our two ranches were blocked by mines and other detritus piled up to prevent troop movement. I could not reach her before I was trapped in the crowded coffin below the church, but I trust that she would try to reach me. I tried sending text messages to her, but kept getting the same response: “Text undeliverable.” Communications, of course, were spotty if they existed at all.    

My phone buzzed with a notification. I looked at it and my eyes were shocked at what they saw: “Meet me at the usual meeting spot.” I knew what she was referring to. There was an ice cream shop in the center of town about two miles from where I was holed it. It was where we first hung out and liked it so much, we designated it as our special spot. She always had the strawberry with whipped cream. But to change it up, she had the gummy bears as toppings. I usually had the cookies and cream ice cream.

Now one might think that I was essentially going on a suicide mission. Snipers could be holed up in the hills outside the town. Rebels could have been targeting civilians attempting to scare the population. Mines could litter the roadways. Aircraft missiles could lock on to me. I could be caught in the crossfire of rebel and loyalist fire.

But I knew it wasn’t a suicide mission. There was only one reason that text was able to get through to me: divine intervention. I knew the Lord would protect me because He wanted me to see her.

Those in the shelter did not care about the actions of others. They were too busy trying to calm the frazzled nerves of their spouses or keep their children from complaining. Some children were running around trying to find some play with the adults. Some welcomed the distraction, but I shooed them away like they were mosquitos. They were quick learners and did not bother me.

I crossed to the other side of the shelter unnoticed, tiptoeing so as not to crush anyone’s hands or feet. There was a flight of ten concrete steps to the wooden door. The door had a wooden block to prevent rebels from entering, but it was easily removable in the case of a medical emergency. I slowly removed the block and opened the door, hoping not to make any noise to call attention to my disappearance.

Despite the constant bombings around us, by the grace of God, the church had been untouched. The church was not one of the architecture masterpieces many people think of when they think of church building. There was no stain glass painting. Outside of the man-sized cross on the wall facing the double-door entrance, the podium in front of the cross, and the lines of chairs facing the cross, there was nothing to distinguish the church from an average office building. I ran outside. I had to see Ashley as soon as possible.

As soon as I opened the doors to the church, I suddenly stopped. The sunlight was blinding after two weeks in the cellar. All I could see what a pure white light. I blinked a couple time and objects started appearing out of focus. A couple more blinks and the objects came into focus.

What I saw stunned me. The entire world I had known just a month prior was gone. Newly built homes now were mere shells; their facades crumbled, exposing the burnt blackness within. The burnt blackness exposed half-destroyed pictures of families. One home had blood splattered in the rubble. The infrastructure still standing had numerous bullet holes dotting their facades. Despite my God-ordained mission, I could not run. I could barely move my muscles to walk to the meeting location.

But what stood out to me the most was how quiet it was. I could hear my breathing get heavier as all the air I breathed was laden with asbestos and dust from the rubble. Streets normally full of minivans going the groceries store or kids yelling while playing a football game were silent. The only noise was the crackling of the fire approximately eighty yards from me. Good guess on where the explosion was. The roads were pockmarked with burned vehicles, dropped weapons, and potholes from what I assume were mines.

I walked approximately a half hour without seeing another sign of life. No gunfire. No explosions. Just an eerie calm until I saw a sight I hoped never to see and had managed to avoid: a dead body. The body was laying face-up, eyes wide open and unblinking. The body was wearing military fatigues with a patch of a grizzly bear on the shoulder, the sign of the rebels. The exposed skin was milk-white, devoid of any color or warmth. There was a pool of thick blood on the ground with half of the right abdominal torn off. There was a portly coyote gnawing at the leg. The coyote turned to me, growled, and then turned back to its lunch.

It took everything I had to keep the breakfast and lunch rations within my stomach. The stench coming from the body was worse than anything within the shelter. I plugged my nose and moved on, shaking my head to-and-fro as if to erase the image from my head like one of those old Etch-A-Sketch toys. I sprinted out of there as fast as I could. I needed to meet Ashley just to take my mind off the image.

The same quiet lasted for another half-mile until I saw another body from approximately fifty yards from me. The interruption jarred me from the thoughts of seeing Ashley. The body was a female and from what I could tell, she was the same size as Ashley. The body was pant-less and a bare butt stuck in the air, but the top was a rose-checkered shirt that I had seen Ashley wear numerous times during our dates. My gut sank as the thought that this could be Ashley crossed my mind. No. God sent the message to me so we could be together! I ran towards the body. There was a civilian who needed my help. Who just so happened to wear the same top as Ashley did. But it was a common top. It was hard to tell the hair color from this distance and the blood staining it.

I ran as fast as I could as tears well down my face. The stench was as repulsive as the other body’s stench, but this time I was able to push through it. Upon arrival at the body, I saw a gaping hole right through the neck. I was close enough to the body where there was my footprint in the blood pooled around her neck. There was a clear hole through the neck.

“MISS! MISS! WAKE UP!” I panicked and shook the body. The body effortless turned over and I saw what I subconsciously knew was laying there: Ashley’s milk-white face. Her eyes unblinkingly open, cloudy. I began breathing heavily, looking around. “HELP!” I screamed before immediately weeping. This wasn’t supposed to be. God sent me the text so we can be together. I then immediately stood up, dropping her limp body. Maybe the text was a setup by God to have some sniper take my life.

“I’M HERE YOU BASTARDS! COME AND TAKE ME! YOU TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME!” My yells echoed throughout the town streets, but there was no response. I collapsed on my knees and wept. I then noticed her hands on her cell phone, opened to our text chat. In the cell phone chat was the message to meet her with the line stating “Sent 7/24/2027”. The day before. I then wept and held Ashley in my arms, staring at her limp body.

God, why do you send the message when it’s too late?! I then looked around to really take in the carnage. Even if I did survive, there was nothing livable in this space, only smoldering buildings and deathly manipulated streets. Smoke arose from nearby fields, probably being scorched and salted so we would be starved out. What kind of God allows this? The God I learned about in Sunday School? The one of love and redemption? If this is love, I don’t want to see what his idea of hate is. Why live when God has abandoned the innocents?

I look up and see that same coyote, licking his lips. Another coyote popped out of a nearby building, staring at me and Ashley. That’s when I realized something. Life is nothing but a game of survival. The coyotes were portly, but they weren’t thriving. They were surviving. I win the game of life and beat God at his own game by surviving. I dropped Ashley’s body and just walked. I didn’t have a direction in mind.

***

“And Brandon, that was my experience with the war. Maybe I will tell you the stories about how I got here to Britain or how I met your grandmother one of these days.” I spoke nonchalantly, then moved into a terser statement, “If you will listen for once.”

Brandon just stared into the video screen. “I…I had no idea. I think I have what I need…thank you…love you.” Brandon stammered, trying to find the right words to say. The video chat abruptly shut off. I reclined in my chair. I hope Brandon learns how to live and survive. You need people around, but you also need to realize what it means to be alone when everything else fails.