Alphabet Soup

Futile

Futile

        It had been weeks since Captain James Baker had first entered the almost complete darkness that enveloped him like a blanket, stifling his ability to control his body until he was no longer capable of movement. Trapped on a thin plane of existence perched between life and death, Captain Baker endlessly struggled against the temptation to give in and proceed towards a distant speck of light. Unable to return to the reality of the living and unwilling to pass into the reality of death, the man was stuck in a nightmare: trapped in his own mind with nothing but sensations he could not outwardly react to and memories he could not change to keep him company.

        As much as Captain Baker yearned to escape from his war torn world, he could not bring himself to abandon his family. Although he could not respond to the outside world in a way that they could see, he was aware of how much his family relied on him. They came to the hospital and sat by his bedside every single day; they prayed for him to return to consciousness not just because they needed him to gather all of the resources they needed but because he was one of the few stable things they could cling to in hopes of staying sane in this wretched world. His daughter, Catherine, was too young to understand exactly what was happening, but his wife, Martha, was not so lucky. Not only had she watched many of her friends die with blood cascading down their sides, but now she had to stand by as her husband lay motionless before her without giving so much as a twitch in response to anything she said or did.

        Captain Baker often found his mind wandering back to the nightmarish catastrophe which had stolen his mobility in a sudden hurricane of fire, blood, and screaming. He had been leading his men on a raid  on a rival city to increase their meager food supplies by pilfering from the houses of some of the more prosperous citizens there when the bomb had hit. Nobody had seen it falling until it was far to late. The bomb and the soldiers had targeted the same city, both with violent intentions. 

        Captain Baker’s group was far away enough to avoid being hit directly, but the blast was strong enough to send his men flying through the air like leaves scattered by the wind. Captain Baker had been lucky; most of his men had been violently splattered against the still standing skeleton of the deserted skyscraper they had been encamped in. Thanks to a few feet of difference caused by a brief scouting trip, Captain Baker’s head had banged with a resounding smack against some of the nearby debris, catapulting him into darkness amidst the final screams of his doomed comrades. 

        Captain Baker could not forgive himself for his actions during the war. He had just been trying to survive, but so was everyone else. He had killed dozens of men (some of which would have been called teenagers in a more tranquil age long since ended), ripped gaping holes in countless families, watched women and children starve just so he could prolong the lives of his own loved ones. He couldn’t even save any of the men who had tirelessly followed him throughout what were quite possibly the last years of humanity. This coma was his punishment, a ceaseless stream of torment fueled by both his past and his present. Like a nightmare, it forced him to witness events unfold without allowing him to alter them in any way. His life was like a dream in comparison,  at least there he could make a difference by providing for his family. 

        Captain Baker smiled inwardly, it was true that humanity was selfish, but perhaps fighting for the survival of those around him made him slightly less so. As he stubbornly refused to pursue the light dancing at the edge of his consciousness, Captain Baker clung to the hope that he could awaken someday and make the last days of his family’s time on Earth marked by love and kindness rather than terror and bloodshed. It would be difficult to find an area that had not yet been tainted by war and hatred, but perhaps there were a few secluded spots that managed to preserve some peace.

        Captain Baker was startled out of his reflections by the voice of a doctor in his ear. What was he saying? Straining his hearing as much as he could, Captain Baker couldn’t quite make out the whispered words. What he did hear was Martha holding back a tempest of tears as she told little Catherine that her daddy would wake up again someday, but that she wouldn’t see him for a very long time. His little girl placed the tiny, worn out teddy bear that he had given her last Christmas into his hands. After making sure the toy was secure in her father’s unmoving hands, Catherine whispered a soft goodbye and a promise to see her beloved daddy soon.

        Captain Baker strained against the blackness surrounding him in one last attempt to move his unresponsive body to no avail: his eyes did not open, his fingers refused to close into a fist, his mouth did not yell in protest. He knew that his time in the darkness was about to come to an abrupt end, but there was nothing he could do. No matter how much his mind fought against his coma, mind would not have any influence on matter this time. All the unmoving father, husband, and soldier could do now was wait for that one inevitable moment when his last hopes would be dashed to pieces. 

        Captain Baker heard the doctor unplug the life-support machines right before the speck of light exploded outward into the nightmare realm he was trapped in, catching him in its warm embrace despite his panicked attempt to flee and forever snatching away his hopes of reuniting with his family. The fresh corpse’s lips refused to part for the horrified scream that echoed throughout the afterlife as the man’s soul was sent spiraling on into the afterlife. Captain Baker’s death, although tragic, was not without purpose. The hospital had needed the bed.