Fantasy.

Just a short story I wrote at school in responce to a picture about a soldier.

They sky was illuminated with colours so magnificent, red so bright and ferocious. White that only the angelic purity of the heavens could match and the most vibrant fresh enrapturing green. I marveled at the spectacle with its pitch black backdrop like a child. A child so filled with awe and inspiration. Filled with appreciation with... with Magic.
And it would have been magical, had it not been fireworks instead of missiles. Had it not been shrieks of sheer delight instead of those of absolute terror. Had it been dancing instead of running for our lives.

They had told us war was not the only option. Yet they never told us it would be their first.

I got the call five months prior to moving to Afghanistan. It was a typical rainy mid - west Tuesday. As always nothing particularly special was happening. Summer vacation had arrived and instead of being out with my friends living the fast hedonistic lifestyle that now I crave, I just lay in my small, wooden single bed and waited. I had become accustomed to waiting by now. For six years I waited outside on our creaky, off-white porch. Along with I presume hundreds of other kids my age. Blue eyes wide in anticipation, head twirling from side to side scanning the sidewalk like state of the art radar. Listening to every minuscule sound so much that I believed at one stage i could actually hear the grass grow.
In all six years, come rain, hail, snow or shine not once did Lieutenant Johnston walk up or down that path. My photo album or memories in my mind did not catch a glimpse of his short black hair, his big brown eyes. or those arms that used to pull me in and keep me safe. Six years passed and that is all I wanted, just a glimpse. A glimpse that would let me know he was safe, that all my tears would not have been wasted. I decided that I was going to join the army, to find him. Youth makes you rash, I realize that now.
I had to almost pry the telephone from my mothers hands. She knew what it was about as well as I did. The tear soaked tissue in her hand was a good indication. A flurry of emotion encased me as I listening to the gruff male voice, joy, fear, hope, grief and anger. Fantasies of finally seeing him again, rescuing him, bringing him home, to our home, raced passionately, carelessly through my mind in an almost state of possession. I had made up my mind. Two years on tour in Afghanistan. Yest with all my certainty fear gripped my heart and would not let go. On the news we were exposed to stories of the first soldiers going in. We thought they were there for a peace treaty to finally resolve the civil unease. I did't notice at the time that we always heard about soldiers going in, but never reports of them coming home.
The first two weeks went by in a flurry. Our division was filled with pale faced, sullen-eyed youths just like myself. We received little to no training, not surprising  really as they coined this an international emergency. Any fit, capable men over the age of eighteen were to be shipped out immediately. In retrospect I wish I had not been so eligible. Afghanistan was not a far off exotic land or a desert filled with colourful travelling caravans. No, it became the worlds largest unmarked graveyard.
 My stomach always clenched whenever I saw the natives come towards us. I wasn't them that i feared, I feared what we had to do to them. What they received from us was always the same, shouting followed by more bullets than was necessary. I still haven't figured out whether it was done out of fear of being killed, or the fear of not killing. I never asked anyway, I was too consumed with finding my father that it had corroded my soul. Killing had become a routine, my mind had gone into autopilot. Danger was no longer what I feared. My only fear was not finding him. Days passed into weeks, weeks into months.  Afghanistan had become my creaky, off-white porch. Yet my porch never had charred pieces of machines or blood, burned bodies strewn around like confetti.
Eventually two years had been replaced with three. Men who knew nothing of loss, fighting or hopelessness were trying to make it four. Every night I sat outside in the dark eyes securely fixed on the colours above. The screams eventually blocked out by thoughts just that bit louder, In all my years acting as a mercenary I finally realized I was here on an hopeless, fairy tale quest.It would have been easier to change lead into gold than it would have been to find him. The price I paid in searching for him was loosing me. There was no way I'd ever stop seeing the tear stained faces, stop smelling the putrid, rotten odor or stop hearing those deafening screams. My fantasy was a million miles from the reality I was faced with. There were no heroes, only casualties. Those dead below the ground and those above ground who were now dead inside. It was that day that I realized that you will never find peace, love, redemption or your father through war.