Looking Up

05 Hindu Kush Mountains

For a brief moment, I find myself staring up at the stars; I'm wondering what the sky looks like back home. Even though I can see my breath floating away in the cold air of the night, I feel comfortably warm. Without closing my eyes, I start to imagine how nice it would be to feel a woman's skin against mine. How soft it might be, how warm it is, the smell of her neck and her hair. My mind doesn't go to a graphically sexual place, it focuses more on the calming effect people can have on each other when they're in each others arms. The feeling of safety or something to that effect. The stars are bright in the sky and some look close enough to touch. I notice that I'm smiling and think about taking a picture because I'm pretty sure it's the smile I've been told I never seem to show. As I start to think about why anyone would wanna see me smile, my face is peppered with dirt and rocks from a mortar round exploding 15 feet in front of me. Like waking up just before you hit the ground in a dream, I'm jolted back to reality. The concussion from the blast throws bits and pieces of the earth at me with violent force and, for a moment, I'm disoriented and forget what I'm about to do. How long have I been staring at the stars? Where am I? What do I do now? Before the thought is even finished, I start doing what I've been trained to do; I return fire and start getting things in order to move forward. The village 250 meters in front of me, is full of baddies on my to do list of: things to get rid of. The problem is that they don't really wanna leave. Normally, I would call in attack birds, go in afterwards to pick up the pieces, call it a day. That isn't the case this time around.
As I wipe the debris from my face, I notice that I my lower lip is bleeding on the left side. The taste of my own blood seems to act as a force multiplier towards my motivation to finish the job quickly; now it's my turn. As we start pressing forward I start to get the feeling that these guys don't have the balls to ride out the fight they picked. They start shooting erratically and with less accuracy than when they first started. To me, it says that they're trying to regroup and potentially distract me from something else, like a sniper. Before I can share my thoughts with the rest of my team, I hear the first shot; a guy to my left wasn't behind much cover. As I watch him slump over in a way that you never wanna see, the second shot hits the guy to his left, and I start to get a sinking feeling. It's not the sinking feeling of failure, it's more the feeling that this day is gonna last longer than any of us want it to and it's probably gonna be a costly day. We've already lost two in less than a minute, bringing our casualty number up to 5 in the last 3 days. I need a raise.
Eventually, we make our way to the first building but at the cost of another guy. In typical afghan fashion, most of the baddies have either been killed or ran away like cowards. Normally this would only leave a handful behind to deal with, however, this turned out to be a larger group than our intel reports had told us. What we thought was more than two thirds of their numbers turned out to be less than half, and they were there to fight it out. The details of what happened next are still a little fuzzy in my mind because I haven't had enough time to process everything. It was definitely one of those days that take time to fully grasp, sort of like trying to place yourself back into an event that you felt you witnessed from the outside, looking in. I know I was there, but I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how I walked out with nothing more than a fat lip. I suppose it's almost a waste of time trying to make sense of that, I should just focus on the fact that I walked away.

I always forget that my mind starts to get a little dark and withdrawn if I've had to many money days. I'm sure it's hard to understand the toll this place can take on someones attitude. Don't get me wrong, I'm ok. I'm going to be ok. I just haven't had to deal with this much s**t in such a short amount of time, in a couple years. I guess this is the genuinely fatigued version of me.
I just looked up at the sky again, and I'm still wondering what it looks like back home. Above me, they're shining in the sky, sparkling in a strange sequence, like a song written in light. I'm completely mesmerized by it and the sound of gunfire is no longer resonating through my head. I still wonder if someone would see the same stars above them that I see, and I briefly start to worry that I'll forget to remember to compare. I don't know what it is about clear nights, like this one, that captures my attention the way it does, especially considering that I'm still being shot at as I write this. I never would've guessed that something like looking up would stir such calm in me. It causes me to think about so many things, none of which have anything to do with what I'm doing right now. I'm still wondering what it would feel like to be next to a woman, where I wanna take my next vacation, where my first pizza is gonna come from when I get back. I wish I was skydiving right now instead of being shot at. I wonder if anyone would find it romantic that I like to write while being shot at. I don't remember the last time I slept, even though I know it couldn't have been more than a day or two ago.
They must have zeroed in on me a little bit; rounds are starting to make the high pitched whizzing sound they make when they're close. A few of them close enough that I feel the air splitting as they barely miss me. This is normally the point that I shoot back, rack up a few kills before I get back to writing, but not this time. I just move a little bit to my right, behind a makeshift wall; I don't feel like distracting my attention from the stars and writing, not yet at least.
.......
Ok, that was the wrong thing to say because I just had to stop writing and do work. As if what I just said was emailed to the baddies, things got a little wild for about 30 minutes. I swear, they have the worst timing ever! It was like a veritable s**t storm of gunfire, RPG's, and poorly placed mortars. Only two wounded that I know of, compared to their multiple dead, which is good enough for me. I think because the weather hasn't been too harsh lately, they feel like they can pick more fights than usual. It's either that or we've pissed off more people than I thought, which is highly possible. I'm not sure where my mind is going with any of this. I'm here, in the middle of a combat zone, and rather than focus on doing what I need to do to stay alive, I can't help but think about what I'd rather be doing instead. I'm not even distracted by the fact that I just had to stop typing to return fire. How desensitized can I really be? I guess I've been around this so much that it's just normal to me now.
Normal....what a stupid way to put it. Reply

 

Reviews

[Stanley Wilson]

fantastic work was there on the ground seeing the story unfold this is so very well written I shall definately be reading more of your work.