A Pair of Honest Men

“Wait here.”

The soldier gestured into the hall, then as quickly as he’d led Peter there, he turned around and left. 

The large metal door closed softly. Peter took in the high ceilings and the grey walls. Too far above to make any impact, a dusty white fan squeaked and swayed precariously. The drabness was appropriate. Even the daylight wasn’t quite bright enough in here. 

Readjusting his helmet in the crook of his arm, Peter walked to the nearest bench. The fabric of his suit crinkled when he sat, the new smell of the material mixing with the faint floral hint in the air. Peter scrunched his nose as the nausea rose to the back of his throat. Setting his helmet down beside him, he ran his hands over his face and into his hair, letting out long exhale. 

“Hey.”

Peter raised his head to the sound of the voice. The man sat adjacent, donned in the same bulky green suit, with his helmet in his lap. His complexion was that tell-tale ashen hue, his eyes the same bloodshot yellow as Peter’s. He had the general dishevelled appearance that identified the damned. Comrades in indignity. The man smiled, the lines at the edges of his eyes crinkling. Peter compromised with a weak nod. 

Entwining his fingers, he returned his gaze to the ground. Grey linoleum polished to acuteness, he could see the spectre of his reflection. Unkempt dreads and an embarrassing mess of facial hair framed his face, his features a dark blur. Even then, Peter could almost feel the intensity of his frustration mirrored off the ground.  

“This your first time too?”

Peter’s stiffened, incredulous and annoyed. He raised his eyes to the man and watched as his casual smile diminished into an expression of embarrassment.

“Sorry, that was a bad joke,” he lazily scratched the back of his head, greying and untidy, “they fly out of me at the worst times.” 

Peter squeezed his hands, the slow tapping of his foot becoming increasingly aggravated. ‘Leave me alone,’ he hoped to convey with his expression before looking away. 

“I’m Ross by the way.”

The heat in the uniform was making Peter’s skin itch. He wished the squeaky fan would squeak faster, and the irritating stranger would take the hint. 

“I know,” Ross said, levity in his voice, “you want me to shut up. You want to think right now.”

“If you’ll let me,” Peter groaned. 

“Of course,” Ross raised his arms in surrender. 

Peter exhaled. Knowing himself, that small irritation would persist for longer than was appropriate. Emily would say it was his habit of harbouring, it would be the death of him. But the disease would be the death of him. Flying an A-19 for the Revivalist Army; leaving his family without a word; drowning in a puddle. About a million other things would kill Peter before his inability to “let things slide,” something he now knew for a fact.

Emily was right to some degree, though. By no will of his own, Peter had a tendency to hang onto the small things. While Emily saw it as a fault, it served Peter most now. As the hour grew closer, all of her little things rose to the surface – quirks which Peter had taken for granted before. Not every piece was charming, but they all coalesced into an image that made Peter’s heart lurch with nostalgia.  

Opposites that they were, Emily was adept at moving past things. “The world is bigger than any one event, Peter,” she would always say. How long would it take her to forget him then? Would it be worse if she didn’t, if she held onto her grief and her memories like Peter no doubt would?

“Hey.”

Peter whipped his head the other man in the room, “what?”

Again with that casual, irritating smile, “you’ll wear a crater into this very nice floor.”

Peter noticed only then that he was practically stomping his foot. He stopped abruptly and the echoes faded into silence. He lifted his head up and took in a deep breath. Stale air that didn’t seem to reach his lungs before he let out a rattling exhale. 

“What were you thinking about?” Ross asked.

Peter scratched his head. His mind still buzzed with fears and obsessions. Where could he begin to collect his thoughts? 

“I was thinking about my son for a while,” Ross responded in the silence, “the bastard called me a coward when I told him what I was up to. We never agree on anything, so I don’t know why I thought this would be any different,” he chuckled, then he coughed. That familiar sickly sound that hurt Peter’s throat just listening to it.

The man looked on the verge of suffocation when he finally stopped. Peter was surprised his hand didn’t come away with any blood. There was silence as he tried to catch his breath, his eyes redder than before. Peter remained quiet. There was nothing to be said. Sympathy had no effect either way, but he understood. Peter saw the pain he tried to hide, and the stranger looked a little less unfamiliar. 

“It’s in my lungs,” Ross said after his breathing normalised. He leaned back against the wall and turned lazily to look at Peter, winded but still smiling.

“My heart and my joints,” Peter replied softly. 

“Did they know? Whoever you were thinking off?”

Peter shook his head, “I couldn’t tell her.”

Had Peter dared, he’d be a in much different situation now. A bit more comfortable, perhaps, but not for long. The government didn’t force the sick to isolate, and Emily would have convinced him to stay and try some inert homeopathic treatment. It wouldn’t stand a chance against the disease – nothing did, and Peter would die slowly before her eyes. He couldn’t bear the thought, or worse, run the risk of infecting her – them. 

Agreeing to do this was in equal parts the easiest and most difficult decision he had to make. 

“It was for the best,” Peter said finally, more to himself than Ross. 

“They never see it that way, do they?” Ross sighed, shaking his head “this whole enterprise is just a shit show.”

Peter let out a weak snort, “that doesn’t sound too patriotic.” 

“Oh, fuck patriotism,” Ross bellowed with sudden animation, “the Revivalists and Genesis have been going at it for longer than anyone has been alive. At this point we’re all just collateral damage.”

Peter agreed with a solemn nod. Regardless of the army’s effort to paint it as such, he had never fooled himself into thinking this was any great act of heroism. Fighting for humanity, dying for the cause... The very next day, someone else would have to listen to the same rehearsed lines, and Peter’s great patriotic sacrifice would be all but forgotten. In the end, any loss or victory, belonged to the masterminds. Peter and everyone else in his situation were simply aimed guns for the government to fire at will. Two birds with one bomb.

If Peter had the fortitude to apply logic then his situation would only reveal more incredulity. It hadn’t made sense when the doctor told him the pain in his chest and bones was a violent form of the disease. It didn’t make sense when the government representatives gave him to two options. It didn’t make sense when he chose to tell Emily a lie and go dying for his nation. Peter remained suspended in that state of confusion, and he accepted that it couldn’t be helped. 

“In the end, though, this is still the best possible outcome, isn’t?” Ross said, pulling the words right out of Peter’s mind. 

The bitter truth of the whole ordeal.

“What did they offer you?” Peter asked. 

“Grace for my boy, Shaun,” for the first time, the mirth fell from the man’s expression, and he spoke with an effecting gravity, “he’s twenty now, old enough to be drafted, but too precious to live through any war. He’s more for old culture; music, theatre, the arts. He doesn’t seem to notice the world going to shit around him,” Ross swallowed and looked to Peter, a new wetness in his eyes, “I want him to stay that way, though. I don’t want him changed by any of this.”

Peter nodded. They were the same. “Emily’s pregnant. We found out right before I was diagnosed. They’re moving her to the green-zone once this is over. My kid doesn’t grow up in the war.”

“Would you look at us,” Ross laughed lazily, “a pair of virtuous men.”

“If only,” Peter managed a small laugh, leaning his back against the wall, “I would be so lucky to die with a clean conscience.”

“Every man’s wish.”

“My wish is that it all wasn’t happening so fast. The sickness, the deployment,” he trailed off. There was a tightness in his throat and his eyes were beginning to burn, “I never thought I would miss waiting to die.” 

Peter was almost amused as all the fear he’d managed to keep at bay began trickling out. He imagined what it would feel like. The army made provisions to ensure that there wouldn’t be any pain in the last moment, but what would it feel like to actually cease to exist. 

“It’s quite ironic isn’t it?” Peter’s voice trembled. He swallowed hard, “flying a bomb into Genesis, just to spread the same disease that’s killing us.”

“The never ending cycle,” Ross said absently. 

Peter buried his face in his hands as the sobs began to rock through him. The tightness in his chest worsened as he became confounded by all his fears, the true implications of this undertaking exposed fully for the first time. He was actually going to die.

The bench groaned as Ross sat next to Peter. He gave his shoulder a squeeze, “you’ll only hurt yourself thinking about it. We might not destroy Genesis, but we are saving lives, you and I. Shaun, your wife, your kid? Trading out about a few months of prolonged suffering to guarantee that they have a better life seems a fair compromise, doesn’t it?

“I’m scared too, friend,” Ross laughed, but Peter knew he was crying, “I’m really fucking scared. But we agree that this was the best outcome among the worst.”

Peter shook his head, his tears falling carelessly, “I really don’t want to die, Ross.”

“I know,” Ross said, patting Peter on the back. He left his hands there until Peter stopped sobbing. 

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hands and sniffled loudly. The graveness of his predicament was still very present in the room, but felt its presence was now slightly reduced. 

Just then, the door at the end of the hall opened to pair of soldiers approaching with military stiffness. Peter’s stomach twisted in response. He turned to Ross to see the same discomfort registered in his expression. But neither of them were as afraid, Peter didn’t think. 

“It’s Peter by the way,” Peter said, “I never told you.”

He rose from the bench and extended his hand to Ross. The man offered his classic lazy smile and returned the handshake. 

“It was a real pleasure meeting you Peter,” Ross said as the ’knock knock’ of the soldiers' boots drew nearer.

“Maybe when this is over we can go grab a drink together.”

This time, Peter laughed.