A Moment Before

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Life and sound consume her. A sharp sonic shriek pierced through her ear, long and loud.  She was hiding. Beneath a flimsy, rusty, spring mattress. It shakes and rattles. Bullets cut the air as they rip through the angels in white coats. She stood over her patient.

His face was hidden behind a red curtain of blood and dirt. Even through this she could see his brown freckles dancing along his nose and cheeks. His hair was a curly maroon, like the inside of a sunset on summer night. And his eyes were a mahogany brown. When caught wandering in the sun they would melt into chocolate you were lost in a sweet escape.

His right leg had been pinned by debris. It was mangled. Holding on by a shred of flesh. She had to amputate it. It was nothing but dead weight to him. She had to pull out each sharp, warm and bloody, shard of shrapnel from his chest. Which was hidden behind a thick layer of dirt and lacerations. Like a game of operation. Once the blades were gone she wiped his face with a cool, soft, wet rag which quickly soaked red. She didn't do this for any of the other men. It was wasted time to wipe these dying men clean. The big brown tent was like a circus with a tiger let loose. Yet, there she stood by this stranger's side. Confined within the walls of her own mind. He looked up at her with the last bit of vitality he had left in him and spoke,

"Thank you... for what you're doin' for me ma'am... but... why are you cleanin' me? You oughta go... help the other fellas."

His accent took her by surprise. It wasn't the same. She wiped the rest of the blood from his face. Carefully sweeping downward, with the red streams, she spoke soft, fragile, words,

"You just... remind me of someone I care a lot about. I would give anything to see him again, you know? And I thought if I could see you... maybe you're right, this isn't right. I'm sorry, I need to help the other men. I'll be going." She halted in her steps as she heard him yell out,

"Thank you... ma'am! Oh, and miss...you will see that man again."

He used the last breath he had to say this and when she turned to look back he was gone. There was never a man lying atop that spring mattress. Her mind was a fool. Food was running low and sleep deprivation plagued the minds of these men. It seemed only a matter of time before it consumed her.

She paced off, still trapped behind the bars in her head. He was wrong. This man, this invisible man whom she saved, she will never see again. Not him nor the man he reminded her of. Hope dies here in these fields, just as men do.

Now, she fought to bring her mind and body back to the circus to save one last man. One real man and so her thought was granted. He was older with speckles of gray in his deep brown hair and a shadow of a beard. He was shot in the head, and to his luck she was an expert when it came to the head. It was something that she could easily fix. It takes a steady hand. She took out what was left of the bullet and stitched him up. He fell into a heavy sleep and was moved into the recovery side of the tent.

The next day she wandered in and he was there, screaming and crying. He had forgotten who he was. His identity was stripped from him by only a fleeting bullet. He lashed around on his blood-soaked sheets. Flailing his limbs like he was being attacked. She stormed over and at once he was calm. Jesus on the raging sea.

He looked at her through his functioning eye, as if she were the only person on this planet. The piercing blue eye. It scared her. Making her feel as if she were completely alone in a vast world. He reached his hand out and she carefully raised hers to meet it. He pulled with such force she thought she was going to lose her arm. He lay his face into her soft chest and quietly sobbed. Tears soaked into her uniform leaving dark stains around spots of green camouflage.

This place, it's hell. Making good, strong, men into weak helpless boys. The days are hot and loud. Nights are cold and the silence is often broken by screams of terror and pain. We all wanted home. In dark times, dark days, it is nearly impossible to find light. All light here burns out. You find something to hold onto. A day, a memory, a time. You must find a little ray of light that you once knew and keep it burning in your dark mind. It's the only thing that keeps you sane.