Foster

Chapter 4

Six days had passed since the bombing. No other fleet of air fighters had come back to attack. Calvin's troop had reached their camp two days following the explosions that had left their men in scraps. The most excitement they had had throughout the past four days was finding a straggler of the enemy wandering through the tents on April 30th of 1970. General Abrams had given the order to keep him alive, believing the soldier had something more to tell us about North Korean plans. However, the rest of his men didn't think as the General did. Rumors began to spread, and not long after the stranger's arrival they had all started to think that the soldier they held hostage was a spy. Many men grew anxious, walking the stretch of the camp with nowhere to go, fiddling with the scopes of their rifles without adjusting them, and lying flat on their cots without sleeping. Most of them were worried the hostage would kill them if they rested, but some considered the goodness in the man. Perhaps he would be grateful they hadn't murdered him.

As they later found out, none of that was true. It was discovered that the man's skin tone did not match that of the enemy, and the only language he spoke was english. Not Korean, Vietnamese, or Russian. Still, the prisoner didn't talk much. Only a "yes" or "no", usually. On the occasion they would hear him muttering incoherently. They saw him weep and laugh at what was seemingly nothing, and General Abrams grew concerned that the man hadn't been part of this war at all. The American soldiers had all heard stories of boys who dressed up as army men to fight in the war. Those who did were considered to either have nothing left, or too much left not to fight for.

Calvin did not feel the same way as the others did. The man they had chained up did not seem like a spy to him. Or a soldier, nor a kid in disguise. He got an odd vibe from him, and he had never even seen the guy. He'd been told of the monstrosities that the man they held had been through, but none of it sounded right. It all felt wrong to him. As if the entirety of the camp had made up their own version of the story. Still, they had no name for this man. No one recognized his face, and no one could get him to tell them a single thing about himself.

These thoughts circled through Calvin's head in the midst of eating his dinner. The mush he had been served tasted a lot better now than it first had when he was dragged into battle. He ate it graciously, not knowing when he might get the chance to eat next. He had grown to love the smell of that mush filling the tents and surrounding air- it could smell like anything you wanted it to if you were hungry enough. Most days he found that he could smell the pea and ham soup his mother used to cook for him on cool nights.

Calvin was forced out of his reminiscence when a tall, dark skinned man joined him at the table. His eyes were pure golden, a lot like sunlight filtering through droplets of honey. He had hair in tufts on his head, and he was much more built and muscular than Calvin. He had a rather large nose, one that hooked slightly at the tip. His nostrils were wide, almost flared. The olive green T-Shirt he wore was drenched in sweet around the collar and chest.

"You must be thinkin' of somethin' real deep. You've got one of those faces," the man noted. "Foster, ain't it?"

Calvin nodded, "That's me. Who are you?"

"Edwards," he replied. "That's my last name, anyway. You know how it goes."

"Well Edwards, I don't got deep thoughts," Calvin shrugged a shoulder and took a bite of his mush. "Just questions."

Edwards snorts, "It ain't ever just questions. And even if it is, they gotta be important ones. To you, at least. Otherwise they wouldn't be in your head."

"I don't see how it's any of your business what I'm thinking," Calvin snapped.

"It's always gonna be someone else's business that isn't your own. That's how it should be. We're all human, we should be able to take care of each other," Edwards said calmly.

Calvin stopped eating and sat up straight, glaring at Edwards, "You don't sound like you've even been to war before. What the hell do you think all of this is?"

Edwards sighed, "I know what war is. I get how it works. We're all fighting for something out here, but you... you don't seem to know what that is yet."

Calvin froze, "I don't know because I don't got shit to fight for anymore." He stood up and took his tray with him, dumping it and setting it down for the men who had rinse duty. For the rest of that night, he wandered the camp. He was waiting. What for, he didn't know.