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Another Fallen Soldier

By liambond

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“This one’s on me, I couldn’t possibly take money from a hero,” said the taxi driver as I left his taxi, returning home for the first time in over 9 months.  He saluted me as I watched his taxi disappear into the sunset. I took a deep breath and looked around the streets where war was just a game for so long. The buildings seemed taller, more intimidating. I felt dizzy.

As I approached the drive, I could hear faint music and muffled voices coming from the house. Familiar voices. The curtains twitched and a silence descended over house. A surprise party; the last thing I needed. 

“SURPRISE!!” 

The front room was crammed full of loved ones, all fighting to get closer to their favourite hero. I dropped my bag and my mother jumped on me. How I’ve missed her, I thought. She overwhelmed me with kisses; her lips smeared lipstick all over my face. A pleasant change from the war paint that had hidden my emotions before now. My father gave me a firm handshake with his right had and a beer with his left. “Congratulations, son. You’re a man.” My father was also sent to war at a young age. He knew how I felt; I could see it in his eyes. It was reassuring to know I was not the only one.

He dragged me by the hand into the garden, pulled up two garden chairs and told me to sit down. The chaos indoors was silenced by the closing of the patio doors. “That’s the last thing you need, I tried to talk her out of it, but you know what your mother’s like,” he explained. “It’s fine, it’s good to see everyone,” I said as I sat back in my chair and sipped my beer. I let out a sigh and relaxed. All of my muscles eased at once. Relief. It felt as though I had been tensing every muscle in my body for 9 months and with one sip of beer and the sound of my father’s soothing voice, they all relaxed. 

“Are you going to tell me about it?” He asked. I took a big gulp of my beer, my gut churned. I said nothing. I just looked up at the stars and remembered lying in the desert doing the same thing last month. Each of the stars making me realise how small and insignificant this planet is. 

“I killed a man.” I said. 

It was my father’s turn to be muted with emotion. I stood up, finished my beer and went back inside to join the party. I looked behind me as I opened the patio doors and saw my father’s head in his hands. Yep, I thought, he does feel my pain.

I returned back indoors and was ambushed once again by loved ones. I explained to them how I was feeling jetlagged and needed an early night. I hastily grabbed four cans of beer and made my way upstairs, turned my bedroom light out and collapsed onto my bed.

I stared at the ceiling; I could see the stars, I could hear the gunfire and I could hear the screams of my fallen brothers. There was a war taking place in my bedroom. My mind was a battlefield.

The party was over, I made my way back downstairs to drink some more. Beer cans were scattered around the living room like lifeless bodies, bled dry. I made my way back into the garden where I’d confessed my sins to my father earlier. It was 4am; the stars were above, still gazing down at me with their corrupted beauty. Beautiful witnesses that had witnessed me commit the ugliest of crimes. They watched as I killed a man. As I killed a husband. As I killed a son. As I killed another soldier.

Tonight, those beautiful stars were going to witness it all over again, as I put down my beer and stared down the barrel of my own gun.