Phantom Limb Syndrome

6. To Cry or to be Dignified

I laid in my bed staring at the ceiling. The days and nights had just seemed to blend. One living nightmare.
The letter came in the middle of the day. My heart had skipped a beat. Mother. Maybe she had finally sent me something back. But in the back of my mind I knew I was alone. She was gone. I was as good as gone myself.
I didn't recognize the handwriting on the letter. It wasn't my mother and I almost laughed. I had expected something that could never happen to me. If I learned one thing from war it was that good things don't just happen. I almost felt like the battlefield had stripped me of anything good. Any sort of moral I could have had in my mind and soul were gone. I read the letter over and over. Trying to wrap my mind around it.
'Moran-
You don't know who I am. Nor should you ever if you choose not to take my offer. I know what you can do. I heard about your tragic accident. Such a pity really. But I could use your talent. I'm aware of your limits. And I have chosen to ignore them. Should you chose to accept, write me a response and give it to that nurse you love. Tell her to give it back to the sender.
-JM'
I read it over and over. Who was JM? What could any of this possibly mean? I was lost in the letter when the nurse walked in. "Sebastian," she said softly. "I told you I'm gonna set these here..."
I looked up confused. She set a pair of wooden crutches on the wall next to my bed. I blinked a few times before realizing they were actually for me.
"Where did they come from?" I asked softly. I wasn't sure how I felt about crutches. I knew I could never walk on my own again. It made me sore to think about. I couldn't walk anymore.
"They came from the same man who delivered your letter," she said cheerfully, holding out the crutches to me again.
I couldn't remember how long I had been there. I had to have been in the hospital for a while now. They still had to change the dressings sometimes, but I was healing. Slowly but healing. I swung myself around so I sat up. I took the crutches from the nurse and put them under my arm. I stood carefully and my vision of slashed with the red and black spots of dizziness. I blinked a few times to try and clear the spots from my vision.
I took a careful step with the crutches and smirked dryly. I could walk. At least a little. But I couldn't run away. I was still stuck here, trapped and suffocating. I sat back down.
"I need a pen, I'm going to write a letter," I told the nurse. She nodded and hurried away to get me what I asked for. She handed me a pen when she came back and I thanked her. "Can you tell me where the bathroom is?" I smiled. For as long as I had been here, I had to use a bedpan or had to have someone practically carry me there and back. I hadn't been able to get up without a nurse's help. She showed me down the hall and I smiled. This was my victory. Being able to take a piss on my own. It was a small victory.
When I went back to my bed I sat on the edge. I picked up the letter and flipped it over. My writing was sloppy. Like I had forgotten how to write since the war started.
'Sir
I'm Sebastian Moran. You seem to already know that. You also seem aware of my injury. I'm interested in your job. Thank you.
-Sebastian'
I wasn't sure what to write. I didn't even know who I was writing to. I assumed it was a man, because the nurse had said a male had brought the crutches and the letter. I folded the letter back up. And slipped it into the envelope. When the nurse came back I handed her the letter.
"Give that back to the man who sent me that letter," I told her with a slight smile when I realized how harsh my voice was. "Thanks," I added softly. She smiled. It was that pitying smile that made my stomach curl. And her eyes brushed over my leg, or where my leg should have been. She looked at me as though my cripple made it ok to be rude.
Over the next few days I practiced on the crutches. They were rather a pain to get used to and my balance was horribly off. I fell several times, needing the nurse's help to stand back up the first few times.
My emotions towards the crutches changed rapidly while I was using them, one way than the other. I was grateful that I wouldn't be bedridden or confined to a wheelchair, yet I knew that I could never go anywhere without them. I would never be looked at the same. Not ever again. I was a broken little soldier boy. Maybe I really was one of the dead-eyes soldier boys that came back from war.
I looked in the mirror at myself and didn't know the person who looked back at me. I was thin yet somehow retained the illusion I was filled out. My hair was unkempt and too long. My eyes were sunken and a foggy shade of blue, surrounded by dark circles. I did look like a ghost.
Then I looked at my leg. Nothing. My pants hung limp on the right side. I couldn't take my eyes off it. Useless. It made me useless. The Germans were attacking my country and I was stuck looking in the mirror looking at a broken soldier toy. I slammed my crutch into the mirror and it shattered. I fell to my hands and knees falling off balance. I cried out in pain, the shattered glass slicing the palm of my hand. I sobbed. All of my dignity gone. The nurse came running. She called the doctor and he picked me up, carrying me like a baby. I shouted abuse at him but it was hard through clenched teeth and tears.
He set me back in my bed and I laid numb, no longer able to cry. I fell into an uneasy sleep. Wright was in my dreams-- nightmares. Taunting me. But there was the constant shelling. And every time he was the one that carried me to safety.