The Elements of Zion: The Vine, The Branch, and The Thorn

Chapter 2

The words tore out of me, jagged and raw, leaving a hollow ache in my chest. It was the first time I'd let them escape, and now they hung between us, too heavy to ignore. The echoes haunted me, clawing at the edges of my sanity. The blood, innocent and staining, wouldn't wash away. No forgiveness could mend the shattered pieces — they were broken forever.

"Grabbed my rifle, pointed it at the footsteps, and let loose a burst." I could now taste the saltiness of the tears on my lips as they ran down my chin. "Then I heard a thump – body hit the deck for sure. But hell if I could see anything in the damn darkness. Something felt off in my gut, you know? Finger came off the bang-switch, and I grabbed my LED – click, flashlight on. There her little boy was, sprawled out laying face down on the floor..."

The doctor rose slowly, the creak of his chair cutting through the suffocating silence. He knelt beside me, his hand resting gently on my shoulder, his voice barely a whisper. "Isaac... there was no way you could have known."

I leaned forward, cradling my face in my hands, the memories surging through me like a relentless tide.

She screamed like a fox in the night, hands clawing at the air, clutching her dead husband's rifle. She kept pulling the trigger, the rifle clicking empty again and again. Andrews tried to hold her back, but she bulldozed past him, unstoppable. She rocketed over to the small figure on the floor, wailing like a wounded animal. She clutched the child as if he might disappear at any moment, her cries for mercy slicing through the air and cracking my head open.

"Arju Allah... Arju Allah," she had cried out desperately.

Those words, "please God, please God..." echoed in my head as I repeated them out loud, each syllable a haunting refrain that lingered long after the chaos had subsided.

He gently squeezed my shoulder, calling me back from the memory, "War holds the power to drive perfectly ordinary people to perform acts that nobody would ever dream of committing. Such despicable things are beyond human comprehension. In that moment, all that mattered was ensuring your survival."

I clenched my fists and gritted my teeth. "Why would God let this happen?" I rasped, my voice thick with disbelief. "No God that cares would just stand by..." I paused, swallowing hard. "One second, the kid's alive. Next, he's gone. My call. No do-overs. Now that face... burned into my head forever. It's got a permanent lease in the darkest part of my soul."

As I peered into the doctor's eyes, I could barely hold back the torrent of emotions surging within me. "Every night, it's like my kid's got a built-in air raid siren goin' off. My gut tells me to grab her, hold her tight, but somethin' deep down just locks me up. How am I supposed to be her father when I can't even hold her when she cries?"

I could see her face, wide-eyed in the dark, but every time I reached out, something inside me froze. I was her dad, but I couldn't give her what she needed most.

The doctor's weary resignation mirrored my own. He had to grasp the gravity of my situation. If there was no cure, I craved an end. Finality, however bleak, held a strange allure.

The doctor turned his head towards me, his eyes filled with a depth of understanding. "This job is difficult sometimes... It weighs heavy on my soul because I'm supposed to remain neutral, but at the same time, I'm a human with emotions. You know I shouldn't mention this, but I am a man of faith, Isaac. As much as you don't comprehend something like that happening, I can't pretend to either, and I certainly don't have all the answers. In my personal experience with life and the people that I've come across, this type of thing never truly disappears. However, it becomes easier to cope with, and we have ways of helping you adapt."

I clenched my eyes shut, swallowing the despair that threatened to consume me. "Tried that pill crap already, and it ain't right. Makes me feel like a lobotomized zombie, wanderin' around half-lit with nothin' but fog in my head. Some days, I wake up and it's a damn fight just to get my sorry ass outta the rack."