A SPONTANEOUS EXISTENCE

I wake up tired and stretch my aching body attempting to ease the ache but it does nothing to counter the lingering effects of the mines.

 Breaking rock is all I've known, melting the ores uncovered from the depths. Home is the familiar heat radiating from the glorious grey, the comforting song of clanging, iron against iron, a blessed reunion.

I move to pick at my callouses but am met with nothing but supple skin. Dread settles in my stomach and my fears are confirmed when before me, are a pair of unfamiliar hands. small, feminine, well-manicured, and fitted with oddly shaped gold rings. Taking in my surroundings, the small space is unfamiliar but familiar at the same time.

I remember planting the leafy plant on the window pane after its predecessor died from dehydration. I remember making that horrid brown stain on the rug below me, but I also remember, very vividly hoarding enough of my mined iron to book safe passage away from the slave lands, or was it making my wife an iron armband that she never took off, wait, didn't my wife die?

 Am I dreaming? Was I dreaming?

 The view from the window is bleak, sky-high fortresses enveloped in fog and smoke, the constant hum of machinery sounding from below. I however cannot sulk much longer as I am compelled to get ready to go to work, I'm a software engineer for the army, a career path influenced by my aptitude for technology and its benefits.

The Capital Wars not so long ago, made it so that you were either indispensable to the army and the governing class or you were working production and barely getting by, The city, a stark reminder, built upon the ashes of the millions of casualties. I shudder at the thought.

Programming is all I've known, bending machinery to my every will. Home is the familiar twinge of pain in my wrist, the alluring fluorescence of screens, the comforting sound of keys clicking under my fingertips, flesh against cybernetic, an unholy matrimony.

Navigating through the sea of warm bodies, their vacant looks reflect the city’s soul. I meander through the streets, subconsciously aware of every, street and corner, and reach a halt at a worn-down building, shorter than the rest but a fortress nonetheless. I'm startled by my reflection on the glass doors as I reach to open them, waving my hands around,  the young woman with the unruly mass of dark curls is me, I could have sworn my hair was in cornrows this morning.

I step in and I immediately step aside paving the way for the stretcher coming through, on it is a man, moaning in pain, missing both his legs covering both the stretcher and the floor in blood. My nose stings from the heavy smell of disinfectant mixed with the unmistakable metallic of blood. Cries of pain carry throughout the building from the injured strewn all over the floor in makeshift beds and stretchers, drowned out by the urgent shouts of the medics.

Turning to leave, I stop in my tracks at the sight of the empty streets and debris littering the area outside. the fortresses are gone, replaced with ruins amidst vast stretches of land with temporary settlements, the underbrush in the debris whispering tales of resilience amidst a harsh reality, war.

 I wobble on my feet as the ground beneath me gives a light tremor, the effects of an explosion not so far from here.

“Where were you? You're needed in surgery, NOW!!"

 a burly man with kind eyes shoves me forward and in no time my body takes over, knowing what to do, what to say, where to cut, what to snip. Was it a software engineer or was it a medic?

 Am I dreaming? Was I dreaming? 

The sight of my blood-soaked gloved hands calms me.

 blood is all I've known, mending the human body. Home is the familiar slick warmth of the scarlet gold, the light wisp of vapor on its surface in the brisk July air, the comforting squelch of tearing flesh, iron against flesh, an impossible conflict.

Body after body, I cut, saw, sew, and soothe. Body after body the flow of patients doubles by the hour, and such is the nature of war.

The gloves on my hands peel away disappearing into nothing, the blood stays staining every inch of my hands.

My hands are broader and more rugged, my fingers thicker, and my arms are muscular with veins coursing prominently beneath my dark skin. the sight of all the blood makes me queasy, don't I like this? the room is darker and much quieter. Under my crouched frame is a woman, no older than I am.

How old am I?

Am I dreaming? Was I dreaming?

Her hair is strewn all over her face sticking to the blood on her slit neck, on her blazer is a name tag. CARLY GITAU. 

I instantly recognize the name from my briefing earlier. it had to be done, for my clients’ sake at least. Staring into her lifeless eyes, guilt washes over me and I wonder what she could have possibly done to deserve this and I cannot remember.

 From the state of the room, she had not gone out without a fight. I go out the same way I had gone in, through the window, scaling the walls soundlessly, and once again my body takes over, taking me home. the scent of lavender engulfs me the moment I get in, my knees give in and an all too familiar ache in my heart overcomes me.

Choking on a sob, I curl up on the cold concrete floor.

pain is all I've known, putting a cork on the raging guilt. Home is the familiar jolt running through my arm from pulling the trigger, seeing glossed-over eyes every time I close my eyes, the swell in my chest, and the never-ending conflict between what needs to be done and what I'd prefer instead, heart against mind. an ancient quarrel.

My sobs echo on the walls of the semi-empty room and I can barely recognize the sound. Dragging my limp body toward the bathroom, I stand before the mirror and what I see does not phase me anymore. Strange tired eyes stare back at me, holding in their depths secrets of past lives, my lives. lives that were callously ripped from me. my face, unrecognizable, a random mixture of features, some I recognize while others seem new. I trace my hands on the scars littering my torso wincing at the feel of the ridges under my fingertips. Where did I get thes-?

My voice trails before I finish the question. I am never going to get an answer to it, to any of it.

 Questions are all I've known, harboring doubts from deep within my soul. Home is the familiar feeling of existing in a strange vessel, my voice uncanny the comforting manifestation of my creator’s jumbled-up thoughts throughout my life, dictating my history, thoughts, feelings, and ideologies,

 author against protagonist, a spontaneous existence.