Phantom Limb Syndrome

3. Ribbon Red as Blood

I woke up again in different clothes. No, I realized, for the first time in months I wasn't wearing an olive drab uniform. I wasn't entirely sure what I was wearing. After a short eternity I worked up the stregnth to look down and noticed I was wearing what looked like some sort of white hospital coat. My hair was still dirty and grown out past regulation, my misery was near doubled by the constant dreadful itch on my scalp. But my uniform wasn't on anymore. And I could clear my drug muddled mind enough that I noticed that. And I noticed the white sheets. Clean sheets on an actual bed. Not a lice ridden tench that was sure to kill a man if he stayed there long enough. My leg still hurt something awful. I didn't bother to try and move. I knew I wouldn't be able too. I was deathly thirsty. I cried out softly and found my throat sore and myself hardly able to make a sound.

There was a nurse who walked in wearing a stark white dress. She smiled at me. Her hair was done in black curls pulled into two pigtails that were hung low on her head tied by two constratingly brilliant red bows.

"Hello Sebastian," she smiled sweetly. I almost didn't recognize the words she said, they simply didn't register in the fog of my mind. I found the sweetness in her voice almost disgusting. She pitied me. She thought that I was walking dead and she was simply watching me die here. I looked at her bright green eyes, she would never know. How could she ever know? I shut my eyes to stop from crying. Everything I had gone through. Everything I had done. For nothing. To die here.

"We were worried about you," she continued in that same patronizing voice. Worried about me. Sure. All I did was take up another hospital bed. My moral was dropping quickly. Anything that had kept me alive on the front was gone. And as I laid here I felt more and more empty. All the memories of war flooding my head.

"I need water," I whispered, barely able to recognize my own words, my own voice.

She nodded and practically skipped away. Her company made me sick. She came back with a glass of water and some type of food. I drank the water slowly, almost not believing it was fresh. It tasted sweet. The food was almost mush. But I ate slower than I drank. And as soon as I finished the first few bites I threw up. The movement was blindingly painful. The nurse stood at the door and her pity for me practically radiated. I was next to several other men who all complained and cursed, even utter a few threats to me. Something about leaving the trenches to die in this putrid place. The nurse sighed.

"I'll clean that," she said softly. And she turned to walk out the room. I groaned softly. My throat hurt, my lips were cracked and dry, and now my mouth tasted like bile. And my leg... The pain was still incredible. Perhaps I needed another dose of morphine. But perhaps they wouldn't give me anything. Perhaps they wanted me to suffer, wanted me to suffer for my stupidity. I could have seen it coming. I could have jumped out of the way. I could have stood just to the left. Or just to the right. And instead I ended up here. In my mind I was screaming and fighting to try and stand. Reliving that moment and not being so blind.

I could tell I was burning with fever. My hair was plastered to my forehead with sweat. I tried to push it away but I found that even moving my arm to brush my hair aside caused me to wince in pain. I squeezed my eyes shut. My leg was gone. It was just gone. What use was I now? That sudden reality was crushing and it was as if I physically felt my heart break. As if I could feel the shards of my heart break into a million parts that slowly cut apart the inside of my body, and slowly my life would leak away from the internal blood loss.

"It gets better," said the man next to me. And I almost jumped in surprise, still jumpy from being on the front for what had felt like a life time. I didn't know what his injury was, I couldn't see it just by looking at him. It must have been something relatively small. But I wouldn't discredit him. I would never discredit anyone. Because if they felt pain, any sort of pain, I wouldn't make them into anything less. I looked at him but could hardly believe his words.