Miss the Days

A man sat in his rocking chair, watching the waves crash against the shore, revolving in their never-ending quest up the sand. The air was hot and humid, too humid for sitting indoors. Seagulls flew overhead, searching unsuccessfully for scraps on the deserted oceanfront.

His chair rocked against the wooden deck, creaking with each backwards movement. The ice in his cold glass of iced tea clinked as he moved. Forwards. Backwards. Forwards. He had so many memories here, eternally implanted in the sand of his mind, even if the waves had wiped away the physical imprints decades ago.

He could still see it, images clearly portrayed on the front of his mind. The castles that he had built as a child, entire kingdoms of sand rising out of the beach, over time swept away by the tide. He remembered running and splashing amongst the waves, the warm water cocooning his body. The soft seafoam swirling around his ankles, before being pulled back into the turbulent waters. In his mind’s eye he saw the infinite expanse of the sea stretched out over the edge of the horizon, dropping into the abyss. There seemed no end to it. It was funny, the limited view of the mind of a child, not able to comprehend the people, places, and problems across that infinite sea. There was more to the world than him and his castles.

He missed those days when life was so simple. The only struggles were the tides endangering his little empires, threatened to clear the sand they sat upon. Little did his younger self know that there was so much more.

Three tours in Afghanistan taught him how miserable the world really was. It took the evils of the word and shoved them down his throat. He learned firsthand just how disgusting the world really was, terror and pain overflowing the brim of the world’s “cup of morality.” He was shown that much more than castles came from the sand. Not the cool, white sand that was soft under his feet. But red, hot, blood soaked sand that crunched beneath his boots. Sand with a higher concentration of lead than stone. Sand that reeked of death.

He had witnessed so much death in time, it was nothing new. He had lost so many close friends, as close as family, gone. Taken by the sands and the evil that came from them. He could still see his brothers in arms, lying dead on the ground, a pool of blood being hungrily devoured by the depraved Mother Earth. She was more vicious there, showing no mercy in the midst of battle. The flag on his shoulder meant nothing to her, the rifle in his hands did not threaten her, she was an invulnerable force, set out to destroy. This was not the same Mother Earth that sent the trees swaying in the breeze, or the waves rolling onto the shore, here she was different, corrupted.

He endured twelve years of her torture. The evil people he fought and killed for his country and those he loved back home. Home. That’s where he wanted to be, not here. Far away from the blood, the violence, the death, the sand. He knew that he could never leave this horrible place, not emotionally. He would see the faces of the men he killed in his sleep. The glazed eyes of his fallen brethren forevermore seared into the back of his mind. He was tired of the fight, weary from the never ending combat. He was sick of the explosions during the night and the bullets flying past his head all hours of the day. This was not what he expected. This was not what he wanted. This was Hell on earth.

He snapped back to reality, tears streaming down his face. Standing up from his chair he went and stood by the porch railing, leaning his weight against it. He took a deep breath, taking in the crisp, salty air. He wasn’t in that God forsaken place anymore, he had to constantly remind himself of that. He followed the railing along the deck and hiked down the stairs.

He ducked behind a sandbag, readying his rifle.

His foot came off the final step, landing on the soft dune grass that grew up away from the water. The cylindrical blades swiped his ankles as he slowly worked his way towards the waves. For just a moment, he stood there at the edge of the grassy dune, watching the stirring blue mass in all of its might.

He aligned his crosshairs on an enemy soldier’s chest. He squeezed the trigger.

He meandered down the sandy bank, sharp pieces of seashell scraping his bare feet. Small stones jabbed into his heel as he walked across them. He stood at the tidal line, just behind a thin line of seaweed, watching a dolphin breach the surface of the ocean in the distance. The water barely ripples as the majestic creature’s dorsal fin disappeared below the sea. It was peaceful.

The rifle stock knocked back against his shoulder from the recoil. He watched as his enemy fell to the earth, dead.

Continuing forwards, he allowed the wave break to swirl up around his feet, eroding the wet sand around his toes, causing him to sink slightly. He scooped up a fistful of muddy sand, holding it in his palm. He scooped up more, expertly shaping the malleable substance. Lost in his task, a building appeared, then another, and another. He sculpted for hours, set on his endeavor. Soon an empire stretched out in front of him, with buildings and castles and walls and drawbridges peppering the oceanfront.

Kicking down a wooden door, he stormed into a small building, rifle at the ready. He turned to see a woman huddled in the corner of the tiny room, grasping a crying child in her arms.

As the sun began to dip below the horizon, disappearing into the abyss at the end of the world, he stood back and examined his creation. As the tide came in, he watched his city die as Nero did. Within minutes it was gone, hours of work gone, reclaimed by the waves. He looked out to sea, examining the churning water before the dark of night set in. He was glad to be away from the world and what it really was. He missed the days where all there was were the waves and the sand. It was more peaceful beside the sea.