The Trenches

I was walking through the mud and blood.  The ground, soaked by days of raining water and shells, was loose and shifting.  All who tread this uneasy earth have grown accustomed to it.  All but me.  My feet, soar and throbbing with each step, moved only because I told them to.  With each uneasy step, the flesh and nerves felt such pain.  As I fought and advanced through the maze, rabid hounds were gnawing at my legs, my feet.  All in the distance was screaming, gunfire, and the thumping...  After a time that is what it sounded like to me.  Like God slamming his fist into the ground, shaking me.  The atmosphere repelled the sane into madness.  If you were not mad by the end, you were no longer human.  I heard calls for help, I had done the same too, and just as I had, so too did they not.

Continuing trudging through these walls.  Some held strong, others had given way to the force of the avalanche.  Snow had fallen a night before, and remained still in some scant few places not touched by war.  Cold winds wet with pain and fear gripped my face.  All that I felt I did not feel, and could not if I wished to.  Someone was there for me, he guided me without my asking, and spoke not a word to me.  I am thankful that he was there, as if he was not then, neither would I be now.  

Walking towards the bunker built into the cliffs edge, there was not much to see.  But, behind, there had been left a suffering enough for many generations.  In this time, I did not pray.  Not in the sense I was taught to.  God was with me, and I convened at times with him to elaborate my spirit.  But I had not the time to pray.  Entering into the bunker was not so different than approaching it.  It was still cold, and wet.  There were still sounds of deathly causes.  But in this shelter, there was a delusion of safety.  More believable than before.  I was not safe.  But, my anxieties did not agree with that, and for a brief moment they were quiet.

He sat with me, the three of us spoke not a word to each other.  There was a break in the drumming of hell.  For some time after the sun went down, peace temporary.  To sleep at night after a flight such as that is almost as impressive as the flight itself.  I had not much time away from living that night.  And in the morning, again, I would meet with the nature of dying.

For many days after this, I had no peace.  The hounds kept gnawing, and I kept trudging.  After a time, I chanced upon a soldier whose eyes were not present, and he the same.  His boots sized about the same as mine and his jacket just as my own.  He sat in place for quite some time and made no motion nor peep.  I poised to offer my boots, but as I gestured towards my legs I saw not boots, rather, blood.  And no hounds.  I asked for his boots, he did not deny them, so I wore his.  I left him in the crater, and advanced again.

I did not die in the trenches, but neither did I leave them alive.  I entered a boy, and I am not of man.  I walk now not in tunnels and labyrinths, but along pavement and trails.  I am not traveling anywhere, and have not moved for all the miles I've tread.  Beyond the scenes of those days mired in death, not much is mine to see.  And when I sit, I sit alone, just one, no longer three.

There have been countless endeavors such as mine.  Many still rage on this day, and will still burn tomorrow.  For all I fought, felt and endured, it was only when I paused, that I observed the progenitor of my pain.  After which, I carried no more agony.