Clay

It's all fun and games until grown men turn to God for divine intervention. If you ask me, there is no divine intervention, or perhaps this was it. We started this chaos; our descent into a vindictive quest had us stranded behind enemy lines. Our unforgiving nature convinced us that we had good to achieve, a purpose for our people. Deep inside, we all knew we were the instigators. We dug our own graves. Some of us looked up to the cloudy, misty skies with heavy breaths escaping our lungs along with all strands of hope we had harbored in our hearts. Hope provides you with strength; a smidgen of hope is all you need to stay alive, but guilt is powerful and persuasive. A smidgen of guilt can have you convinced that you deserve a dog's death. The stern countenance of soldiers had faded and been replaced with tears resting on their eyelids. They had now dropped their weapons and clutched onto a cross and pictures of mothers and wives who waited for them back at home. What fitting end awaited for men who wreaked havoc on hungry children. We had dogged ourselves to steal, hurt, and bereave families at the wish of diplomats sitting in high towers. We are not the protagonists; we have stained our souls with bloodlust. The guilt had solidified in our hearts now, and we pleaded for mercy. We were terrified. Terrified of death and terrified of being remembered to be on the wrong side of history. I was terrified of being forgotten. There had been no great moments in my pursuits, and possibly within days, my greatest attempts and forays will be forgotten. A soldier can die as Alexander the Great or as John Doe in a ditch. I shall be the latter. John Doe in a ditch who died a dog's death, suffered inexplicably in his final moments.

We lay there motionless as the mud had us rooted to the earth. The wounded departed, and the strong were broken. In those final moments, you forge a sense of camaraderie with those next to you that is unrivaled even by brothers. I could gaze into Marco’s heart through his eyes. They once spoke of bold ambitions of bravery but now are shrouded by the bitter taste of death. His eyes spoke of loss and love. He wept for his wife before he turned pale and succumbed to his death. He was terrified. I held his hands and promised to bury him under one of the oak trees in his wife's gardens. If she is to remarry, she could come meet him every day with an excuse to walk in the shade of the oak trees. I lied. I didn't care about Marco, his heart, or his wife. He was a malingerer with little inclination to work. He romanticized war and tales of brave soldiers. Any poor soul who has suffered war knows there is nothing romantic about it, and all brave soldiers soiled their trousers at the sight of death. I endured his last moments with a sense of resignation and forged compassion, making false promises to make death easier on him. It wasn't. That is against the nature of death. He will rest here, rot here, and be picked at and torn by the talons of hungry birds. I couldn't feel sympathy for him. He was a jingoist warmongering liar lying lifeless in a pit of blood, mud, and excrement of his own and others like him. The purest form of malice is perhaps an artful brazen lie. You eventually start believing the lies you tell. Sinners die believing they are heroes. I could feel my breath growing shallow. I was about to die, and I soiled my trousers.

“My Lord and Redeemer, let me obtain pardon of my sins and forgive me of my debts. Deliver me from evil, deliver me from myself,” I said my prayers and embraced my death, and up until that moment, I was an atheist. The rough winds collided with the abundant dark clouds on the horizon. The air grew heavy and grim. It was the coldest night of my life; I shivered to my bones. My troop had already started to rot. I was the last survivor of this suicide show. I had an itch on my nose that grew increasingly persistent. I couldn't lift my hands to scratch it. I asked Perry to scratch my nose for me. I gently turned my head to look at Perry. His eyes had been gouged out by vultures. I forgot Perry died last week. He was among the first to die, and I wasn't surprised. He made a weak soldier. Surrounded by the corpses of my comrades, I felt lonely. I wondered how many of them prayed but weren't heard. Their prayers were lost and forgotten much like them. The birds timidly waited and grew increasingly impatient. They kept me company. The most impatient was perhaps Vinny. He was a funny-looking one with a neck so long and thin it's practically a pipe! His beady brown eyes had a malevolent glint, and he couldn't help but lock eyes with me at routine intervals. I wasn't ready to be food for scavenger birds, and I let out a cry. I wondered if my prayers were heard. Vinny grinned.

I yearned to see the sun. I can remember exactly when a beaming light pierced through the ominous, misty dark clouds that hovered over us. The sun shone pompously, and the visible silhouette of a Sikorsky HH-60 Pave Hawk appeared as a beacon of hope for us miserable delinquents. My prayers were perhaps accepted. And children, that is when I first laid my eyes on her. She sat there in the chopper, a medic with bright blonde hair that retreated into a touji which glistened under the sun like the golden fields of barley in a summer afternoon. I was in awe of her flickering gaze, the rhythm in her quivering voice, and her nimble touch. I would have followed her to the end of the world with my eyes blindfolded and feet tied in a knot. I would choose to drown many times over if I must, to make her acquaintance. At that moment, I was cured of myself. It was love at first sight and dear children, It's all fun and games until a grown man falls madly and irrefutably in love.