From a Mirror All is Clear CONT 12-27-02

Middloge-Been absent from the site and this story, while i havent gone through it lately, and im not sure if this has been gone through at all.

    Homesickness in this quiet moment grows rampant through you and your traveling group. And in this moment upon finding dry dirt for a moment you think back to a place where the grass is held at bay with people and machines and would never get this high. Where on a day such as this at home you could have watched a baseball game and eaten a hotdog. Maybe even a beer to wash it down, instead of this tasteless water. Or if the wind was just right you could smell some delicious desert cooling from the oven. And in an hour from this exact time you could have sat down with your family, ate a meal and discussed anything that crossed anybody’s mind. Sometimes discussions could get rather hot but people cooled down and nobody left the table until the problem and the dishes was cleared up. Maybe go fishing like every other summer, the lake that is near your home is remarkably blue and even when the fish aren’t biting the fun had is always enough to make you want to stay and not go back home. At home you could have called upon the next door brunette who always called you by that childish name that she will never let you live down. You could have sat on a swing with her and discussed even more local things and concerns or just kiss and hold each other like you had done so many times. So many possibilities of and remembrances of home cross your mind that you could described as absent minded. But in the very near distance out of sight you here whispers on the wind, you almost want to thank the voices for grabbing and pulling you from your memories, memories of a home and time that can never be again. You step back around the tree and motion for others to do the same.

  The voice comes closer and soon you see the same number of men as your own group emerge from the thick brush. They are being careful but so far have no reason to expect anyone. Your group had not made a sound and if your group had been as noisy as they had your places would be reversed they would be safely hiding and you would be the noisy bunch pushing into the bush. This noisy group  had stopped at where the river and the creek met and refreshed and had just started their movement west again. The man in front and closest to you is the most cautious and had often reminded his fellows to be quieter but they seemed too careless to listen. His face seemed familiar and stuck out more so that you pay little attention to most of the others as they passed. You wait and listen but apparently like yourself this group seems to be alone with no other noise you hope that with there passing and leaving will leave you again safe as one could be in this damnable place. The last person had been the noisiest and possibly the most youngest, But just as he was passing by he caught the sign of a hidden person in the brush and yelled for support from those who had already passed. You wonder how he was able to see what others had not but realizing this was no longer the time for thought. You yell to the others to commence fire and soon the area is filled with gunpowder, and smoke.

 The sounds have trouble making it through to your ear, but the only sounds heard are strait out of hell, gunfire resonating, sounds of men fighting, grunting with their movement. Finally the last sounds were groans of dying men. Through out all this you and your men have acted to the best of your training, shooting, ducking and you giving orders. But with a shot to the arm and then leg you fall backwards dropping your gun closely and loose conscience. And with a flash its you twenty years old sitting in that Indiana swing with that same sweetheart that only crosses your mind every second you get that isn’t occupied with regret, remorse, or worry. Any second that is your own, that same girl, who died in your arms only days after this whole incident started, returns to remind you of another life. And with remorse you go through the motions of the dream. You are like a machine yet full of pain and contempt. Deep down you know this isn’t real yet you continue on. This memory of what happens later turns the pleasantness felt into pain as the dream becomes more of a nightmare. Your conscience wins over unconsciousness just when the pain of following through the motions of becomes too much. And as you wake the pain from the dream changes and becomes pain in your limbs. With this great pain pulsing, and now only silence answering your shallow calls for assistance, you raise yourself up, seemingly from the grave.