On Leave

** Note ** This story deals with themes of violence, gore, mental health, and sexual content which some readers may find upsetting.

On Leave

by T. Michael Morris

He sat in a cheap beach chair, watching the Pacific roll onto the white sand. His eyes squinted in the sunlight, the horizon bending far beyond the waves. The Mai Tai in his hand was cold, condensation dripping down the glass, but he didn’t drink. He had been in Hawaii for two weeks now. On leave, they said. Permissive Temporary Duty they called it. He had been discharged honorably. They said he was free.

But freedom was a funny concept.

The sun burned high in the sky, a blazing orb that beat down on his skin, and the breeze carried the salt and warmth of the tropics. Around him vacationers sprawled out on towels and chairs, their skin glistening in the sun. The waves came in, steady, like the ticking of an invisible clock. He could hear the laughter of a nearby couple. The easy way they spoke. Their world was so far from his own, it might as well have been a dream.

He squinted against the sun, watching two women sprawled out a short distance away, their skin glistening with a sheen of suntan oil. Their tops lay discarded beside them, and their breasts, tanned and perky, soaked up the sun without care. Laughter floated between them, airy and aimless.

He stared, unblinking, his eyes tracing the curves of their bodies. A younger version of himself might have smiled. Might have felt a jolt of hunger, a desire to dominate them sexually - to taste them, to embrace them, to feel every inch of their warmth as he entered them. But now, nothing. Just a dull ache that sat behind his ribs and refused to move.

Desire had left him the way everything else had – quietly, without ceremony. What remained wasn’t chastity, but absence. A vacancy. He wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t alive in any way that counted. The sight of their bare skin stirred something deeper than lust. It was a reminder that he wasn’t part of their world. Not anymore.

He turned away. The numbness clung to him, grainy and persistent, like the sand caught in the creases of his palm. All he could feel was loathing as the raw edge of memory gnawed against him. Blood still lingered at the corners of his mind, dark and dried, etched like something permanent.

He hadn’t spoken much since he arrived. The island was beautiful. Palm trees swayed, and the water shimmered in a picturesque way seen only in postcards. The air smelled like coconut and sunscreen. But this wasn’t his world. It wasn’t where he belonged.

He closed his eyes and tried to take a breath. He could feel the heat pressing down, but it wasn’t from the beach. It was dry. Like desert air. Like dust and sand. He was still in Afghanistan. Always Afghanistan.

When he opened his eyes, it was there again. In the back of his mind, just beyond the edge of the waves. The sound of helicopters. The crack of gunfire. The sounds were distant, but they never left him. The smell of burnt flesh clung to his skin, no matter how many times he scrubbed. He could still see the blood soaking through his uniform.

He looked at his watch. Tomorrow he would fly to Seattle. Back to the rain. Back to the place where the clouds hung low and the streets were wet with the kind of cold that soaked deep into the bones. He’ll be home. But he didn’t know what home was anymore.

He took a sip of the cocktail. It was sweet, but it didn’t matter. His hands trembled as he set the glass back on the arm of the chair. He tried to close his eyes again, to block out the light, but all it did was bring him back to the desert.

The dream played over in his mind, like it had been doing ever since he left. He didn’t fight it anymore.

The sun was high in the Afghan sky, baking the earth beneath it. The sand stretched out in every direction, dry and unyielding. The air tasted of grit. There was no peace here, only the weight of something unspeakable and heavy. He stood at a distance, watching as a group of Afghan men circled around something on the ground. Their faces were blank, empty, the kind of emptiness that comes from seeing too much. Too many dead. Too many lost.

He tried to push past them, but his feet wouldn’t move. His grip was firm on his M4 carbine rifle. He knew what he would see as he pushed forward. He had seen it countless times before, but it always felt like the first time. Like it was new. Like it would never end.

The girl lay in the dirt, her small frame twisted and broken. She was just a child, she would have been around eight or nine years old he guessed. The IED had taken her arm, shredded it right off her body. Her skin was burnt, blackened, and peeling, but it was her eyes – those wide, empty eyes – that cut through him the most. They were still open, still staring, and he could almost hear the pain that had been there moments before. She had suffered more than any child ever should.

The men around her were silent. Their hands at their sides. Their eyes fixed on the body. There was no wailing. No tears. Just a heavy silence followed by the crack of a gunshot.

They began to pray. The words rose up in a low murmur. Allah hu Akbar. God is great. Their hands lifted, palms outwards, before they pressed them to their chests. Allah hu Akbar. Subhana kallah huma wa bee hum deeka wa ta bara kusmuka wa ta allah jaduka wa la ilaha ghairuk. They continued. You are glorified, oh Allah, and praised; your name is blessed; your majesty is exalted, and none has the right to worship but You. A’oodhu Billaahi minash-shaitaanir-rajeem They finished. I seek refuge in Allah from Satan the accursed.

He tried to breathe, but the air was thick and bitter. The sun bore down on him, the weight of the dream pressing against his chest. He wanted to scream, to shout, to make it stop. But there was nothing. The desert held no mercy. There was only the bitter air and the never-ending sand.

And the girl. Always the girl.

He woke up with a start, his body drenched in sweat. The room was dark, the sound of the ocean waves just beyond his window. He sat up gasping for air, his heart pounding in his chest. His fingers dug into the sheets, twisting them in his fists as he tried to remember where he was. The dream clung to him, the weight of it crushing his lungs.

He blinked, trying to clear the fog from his mind. But it was still there. The girl. The blood in the sand. The prayers coming out of the mouths of cruel men. He wiped a hand across his face and sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. His role in the war is over, at least that’s what he was told. But they didn’t know. They didn’t know that it never really ended.

He stood up, his legs unsteady beneath him. He walked to the window and looked out at the waves crashing on the shore. The moon was high, casting a pale light on the beach. The world outside was calm.

Tomorrow he would leave. Seattle was waiting for him. A six-hour flight, back to the rain, back to the cold gray streets. He told himself it would be good to be back home. That he could find peace there. But he knew better. He knew the war would find him in the suffocating isolation of the city.

The clock on the nightstand read 4:17 a.m. He still had time before the sun would rise. He thought about going back to bed, but he knew what was waiting for him there. Instead, he walked to the door, opened it, and stepped outside into the night air.

The beach was empty. The waves came in steady, like they always had. He stood there for a long time, listening. The sound of the ocean filled the silence, but it wasn’t enough to drown out the noise in his head. Allah hu Akbar…