Phantom Limb Syndrome

5. Broken Soldier Boys

I finally found a distraction from the pain. In training, every morning, we had to make our beds. It seemed like such a simple task at first that we all had laughed at. Until we realized the corners had to pull the sheets so tight our Sargeant could bounce a coin off the mattress. When one of us messed it up, we all messed it up. Not only had that meant remaking all of the beds until they were perfect, it meant our workout had gotten seven times harder in a single second. I realized the corners of the hospital beds were tucked in the same way. I wasn't in any place to be getting up and making a bed, but every morning I would slip off my pillowcase and fold it into a perfect square, with perfectly neat corners. The other men in the hospital room laughed at me, they couldn't understand why I would waste my time, folding and unfolding the piece of fabric until it was perfect. They couldn't understand that the focus on something other than the blank walls of the room and the pain was beyond therapeutic. I found it calming, it reminded me that I wasn't a broken machine. That I could still function in some way, even if that function was folding pillowcases into useless squares. It gave me a distraction from the numbing pain in my leg that wasn't really there.

The man in the bed next noticed what I was doing one day and he smiled softly with a slight laugh. He stuck out his hand and I gingerly gave him the folded pillowcase. He turned it over in his hands before looking back at me.

"You were a good soldier," he smiled, handing it back to me. "It's attention to the little things like this that make the cut between good and great. Remember that. No matter how bad it hurts, no matter what happens to you, do not ever let yourself falter in the small details, Sebastian."

I couldn't help but nod at him. His words always resonated in my head. As if he was orating his last words every moment he spoke. I felt myself blush slightly at his compliment. I knew by now that he had been very high ranking, although he never told me what he had actually ranked. I could simply tell. The way he spoke, the way he acted, the simpleness in the way he seemed to be able to command the entire hospital room with only a few words. I couldn't help but feel my whole face flush red and he laughed.

"Just don't forget that. If you don't make your bed, how do you plan to get a damned thing accomplished?" He shrugged and I just nodded, dumbfounded.

Wright came to visit me once. Close after my surgery. I had been asleep when he got there and he sat next to my bed reading a magazine. He was on leave for a few weeks. I woke up with a shout when he was next to my bed.

"Christ!" I shouted, surprised that he was there. "Where did you come from?" My heart pounded and I winced in pain from jumping. My leg still hurt something awful.

"Figured I'd come say hi," he said raising his hands in a mock surrender.

"At ease," I mumbled with a weak smirk.

He smiled. But he pitted me and it made me sick. The way he looked at me. He looked at me like I was a ghost. Or a ghost of the boy I had once been. No I wasn't a boy, I hardly believed I was human any more. I was the ghost of the soldier I had once been and a memory of the schoolboy I wished I could be. He stared at the place in the sheets where my leg should have been.

"My eyes are up here," I said with a bitter taste in my mouth. It was like I was chocking on my own disgust that being stared at and pitied would be my new reality, and I actually tasted bile at the thought. That's all people would ever do. Look at where my leg should have been. Pity me for being broken. A broken little soldier boy. I was a wasted life, and Wright looked at me thinking that. I could feel my heart getting heavier and heavier as he stood there. His cheeks flushed red.

"Your lucky," he said, clapping his hands behind his back. "It's been bad out there and the food's been no better. And they cut the cigarette rations!"

I laughed softly. I was an avid smoker. Horribly addicted, I guess. "I would have died," I said trying to keep a smile for him. He needed to see that. He needed something to be okay. I could see it in his eyes. His eyes looked as if he had forgotten what happiness was, he had been such a handsome boy at camp, and now his sunken eyes seemed to have forgotten how to live. "What would I have done?"

He shrugged. "You would have traded an arm and a leg," as soon as the words left his mouth, his face went white. "I didn't mean-" my heart felt like it would explode at that comment. My mouth fell open a little.

"No, I wouldn't have," I cut him off coldly. "Anyways..." I desperately wanted to change the subject. "How long are you in town for?"

He did not meet meet my eyes after that. He looked at his boots, suddenly fascinated. "I'm in town for two weeks," he said softly. We made small talk for a while. He told me how much he had missed real food. I wished I had felt the same. Nothing felt as good to me as before. My bed felt too soft, my clothes were too clean. I smiled and nodded.

He sighed, "It's not so bad..." He eventually said softly, trying to be comforting. My face reddened in anger.

"Not so bad? You're telling me that standing above my bed. Looking at me like-- like I'm dying! No, you look at me like I'm dead," my anger rose with every word. "You're trying to tell me it's not so bad! You don't know anything! You-- you ignorant bastard!"

"Sebastian!" He tried to object. I curled my lip.

"Fuck off, James. Don't come back," I snarled at him. He opened his mouth to say something else and I stared hard at him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered turning to walk away.

I never saw him again.