Lover/Soldier

Flash Fiction

"Death Directs the Bullet" by Hans Larwin

My comrades and I crouch in the trench. The battle will start any moment now. I have the soft whispers of thirst in my throat; the hot air has me dried up as though I’ve turned to a brittle rock that will crumble if I’m stepped upon, but I have fought that and worse in military training. I shall be just fine.

“After we win this war,” my friend—Nikolas—says to me in our mother tongue, “do you think you’ll ask Natasha to marry you?”

I swallow the spit in my dehydrated mouth and reply, “Without a doubt. I have the ring.”

“Why would you bring the ring with you?” another brother—Bogdan—questions me.

“So, I know why I must return.”

His eyes lower in thought. He whispers to himself, “Heh.” The disbelief of making it out alive shows plainly on his face along with amusement for my naive hope.

The hot sun blazes above, almost as if giving a faint taste of what awaits humanity at the core of life in hell. For miles & miles, I see uneven terrain and men dressed in the mud-coloured uniform that covers my own chest, arms & legs. The scent of dried ground, barren land, sweat and gunpowder spreads through my lungs, all at once, as if to make sure I won’t get pulled by my beloved’s thoughts. I need to cough.

The odour of this land is disgusting. It reminds me of the mauled rat I saw on the road once. I immediately thought of what might be going through its head as it died. Its eyes were still open, looking up at me, like it was begging for some kind of help to relieve some pain, but I only bit my finger and walked away. Perhaps, the rat is still just scurrying around for food in its mind, wondering why there’s pain everywhere. The last thing on its mind was to feed on something. And it still searches, still starves.

After a long moment of menacing silence, I ask, “What about you two? What will you do when you get back home?” The bitter taste on my tongue is only enhanced when blood fills my mouth. My tongue is too fragile or perhaps my teeth are too strong. All I know, is that my heart is quite weak right now.

Nikolas answers, “Ah, this is my third battle,” looking around the trench we’re trapped in. He looks at me. “Who knows?”

Bogdan says, “I plan on misusing the title ‘war veteran’ often.”

I laugh. Bogdan is almost never serious yet always serious. I don’t know what it is in these moments—the ones that lead up to something drastically dangerous, an act of fatality, a question of survival, that they are so… humorous. I feel like a fish who’s got a hook stuck in their belly and all I can do about it is laugh. Perhaps, that’s what fish do when they’re pulled out the water and look like they’re suffocating & suffering, but they’re just laughing.

Bogdan and Nikolas are older than me—my superiors. Instead of taking their bullying as offensive like others in the military training, I used to take it as constructive criticism. That is solely the reason for our bonding—they take pride in me.

However, when I stand here with feet glued to the ground, legs unstable, I realize I don’t want their pride. I don’t want the title of ‘war veteran,’ I don’t want to be honoured or hold great respect or possess war medals, I want to go home and ask Natasha to marry me. I want to be with her in bed, have the outline of her soft body, her gentle, supple skin aligned with my hardened figure; I’d like to hear her elicit my name out of her delicate, small lips as if the breaths she took were filled with me, as if she was full of me.

I am a simple man. As a young boy, I had ambitions, expectations from the world but they’ve dwindled, faded like an old dream, like the thin, lingering sensation of a monster under your bed as you grow up. Now, I have lost all ambitions; now, I just want to love and be loved.

The first shot is taken. Guns are already loaded. The sound of gunfire echoes restlessly in my head, reverberating through my skull as if the noises aren’t just waves but a hammer determined to squash my brain. When I play the noise in slow-motion, I can almost hear the steps of my beloved in tall heels, as she dances in the kitchen, cooking for me. A large difference between the scenes, even the noises and yet, such a fine thread could weave them together. This is not the time to be philosophical, I remind myself, though Natasha would love it. A splitting headache takes over me as I take a fast & deep breath, position the gun and am about to start shooting but...

Bombs fall. They fall on me. I think about her.

My body tears in tiny parts—a fraction of me is splattered everywhere. Pain surges through me intensely but only for a hot second. Slivers of what my fingers used to be try to reach my pocket for the ring, for her picture, but where is my hand, where is part of my leg? When the life leaves all my body parts, my fingers stop twitching and I realize...

Some lovers have their soul pulled out by cruel fate’s hand without even the mercy of letting them see their beloved for one last time like rats who never get to reach their food.

I hope I’m forever searching for her.

When lovers are forced to be soldiers...
the world falls onto itself.
When humans aren’t allowed to love,
war breaks everywhere.

- Bleh 👅

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Author’s Note:

I do not normally write these, but this time it seems quite important.

With the current affairs of the world being how they are, this post seemed almost essential to post. It was written for a contest using the prompt “soldiers in the trenches of world war two” and I have tried my best to represent that as well as I could under 2000 words. However, this is anything but accurate. Those moments leading up to commencement of the war, those few heartbeats left must feel so intense, that snap-second before collapse are all features of war that I could never capture in my writing. It is one of the most brutal, horrifying and unnecessary torture faced by innocents.

Despite the violence, loss and destruction of war, I have seen people cheering it on. Gasps of pleasant surprise, excited eyes and declarations of patriotism due to the news of bombs being dropped in places truly sicken me. What has happened to the human race? Perhaps, the war should end us all.

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones” - Albert Einstein.

Praying for the families affected, praying for children, praying for the political tensions to calm soon for our safety and praying for some level of empathy, intelligence and humanity in the individuals who find war endearing.

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