HARBINGER I
Et dixi illi domine mi tu scis et dixit mihi hii sunt qui veniunt de tribulatione magna et laverunt stolas suas et dealbaverunt eas in sanguine agni.
I closed my eyes against the noon sun. I hardly noticed the sting of the sweat slowly dripping from my forehead into my eyesockets. I hardly noticed the dry crust of the blood and dirt caked under my nails. I hardly noticed anything anymore. Nothing was out of place. Nothing was strange. Nothing was surprising. To find someone free of misery, suffering, death: that was surprising.
Growing up I had always wondered what I would do with myself. What would I live for? What was important to me?
How naive. Now I wonder how I will live, and wonder when I will die. Of bullets. Of disease. Of radiation poisoning. Of starvation. Would my soul leave me, my wretched, weakening shell of a body? Would it simply quit?
It doesn't matter.
I will die when I will die.
I sit behind a six foot high pile of rubble of cars, concrete, and twisted metal. It smells of char and swill and death. And death. So much death. There were those who died in the first bombing. There were those who survived the drop and died of radiation. Their twisted, fried, bulging bodies writihing with the pain. Those who survived the most horrible death imaginable might have died in the subsequent air attacks. Gas ten times more potent then mustard gas, leaving humans to cough up their lungs over a few minutes, slowly suffocating on their own blood and their lack of lungs. Those who managed to walk away with their flesh unsinged and on their bones, and their lungs in their chests may have taken a bullet in the leg, in the arm, in the heart, in the head. Carnage wasn't a way of life. It was life. It wasn't inflicting it. It was surviving it.
Thirsty. I got up and walked to an old supermarket about a hundred yards from the rubble barricade. About a dozen of us had converted it into a makeshift base. There wasn't much left in it these days. Enough for a few weeks. The sun was setting. I must have fallen asleep. Sleep and waking are strangely blurred these days. These days. Where are those days?
After I went and got a jug of water, I propped myself belly down on the rubble barricade. I did my best to keep my eyes open, but I dozed off, rifle in hand before too long. As I was falling into sleep, I found myself praying. Something, anything, please. Why dont you help us?
I had long since lost my faith. When I was 22, I had actually enrolled in small Orthodox seminary outside of Utica, NY. I was traveling when the first bomb came. It seems so long ago. I hardly remember how old I am now. 26? 27? 23? It doesn't matter anyways, my mind feel into the psychological safety of sleep. The blackness was comforting.
Pop pop pop. They we're coming again. I awoke with a start. Why did they want this? This place has nothing?
This place has everything...as long we are, there is something against them.
Where the fuck are You?
Forgive me.
Pop pop pop.
Everybody out here where are the mortars my arm why dont those bastards go down ah shit im hit im done Oh God Oh God Oh God stop crying give me your arm your fine get inside WHY WONT YOU DIE shit there goes his head, damn it's always the nice ones that get their faces blown off i would really like some dinner and a house and the summer on a lake when did the darkness come EVERYBODY BACK SHUT UP SHUT UP TURN OUT THE LAMPS DONT EVEN BREATHE
We had retreated beyond the plaza, into the basement of an old movie theater complex. The parking lot was blown up from airstrikes, and the basement was accessible without going in the building itself. We all slunk low and stayed quiet. They might pass over us. Shut the fuck up. The metallic chink of the soldiers passed by. I cried. I cried hard. "You okay?" I choked on my tears. When would this stop. Why wont you make this stop? you arent there. thats why. im running and shooting and not dying and seeing faces blown apart and soldiers kachinking by and im still here and nothing else exists but death and running and bullets and dirty water.
I slept well for the first time since the first bomb.
I closed my eyes against the noon sun. I hardly noticed the sting of the sweat slowly dripping from my forehead into my eyesockets. I hardly noticed the dry crust of the blood and dirt caked under my nails. I hardly noticed anything anymore. Nothing was out of place. Nothing was strange. Nothing was surprising. To find someone free of misery, suffering, death: that was surprising.
Growing up I had always wondered what I would do with myself. What would I live for? What was important to me?
How naive. Now I wonder how I will live, and wonder when I will die. Of bullets. Of disease. Of radiation poisoning. Of starvation. Would my soul leave me, my wretched, weakening shell of a body? Would it simply quit?
It doesn't matter.
I will die when I will die.
I sit behind a six foot high pile of rubble of cars, concrete, and twisted metal. It smells of char and swill and death. And death. So much death. There were those who died in the first bombing. There were those who survived the drop and died of radiation. Their twisted, fried, bulging bodies writihing with the pain. Those who survived the most horrible death imaginable might have died in the subsequent air attacks. Gas ten times more potent then mustard gas, leaving humans to cough up their lungs over a few minutes, slowly suffocating on their own blood and their lack of lungs. Those who managed to walk away with their flesh unsinged and on their bones, and their lungs in their chests may have taken a bullet in the leg, in the arm, in the heart, in the head. Carnage wasn't a way of life. It was life. It wasn't inflicting it. It was surviving it.
Thirsty. I got up and walked to an old supermarket about a hundred yards from the rubble barricade. About a dozen of us had converted it into a makeshift base. There wasn't much left in it these days. Enough for a few weeks. The sun was setting. I must have fallen asleep. Sleep and waking are strangely blurred these days. These days. Where are those days?
After I went and got a jug of water, I propped myself belly down on the rubble barricade. I did my best to keep my eyes open, but I dozed off, rifle in hand before too long. As I was falling into sleep, I found myself praying. Something, anything, please. Why dont you help us?
I had long since lost my faith. When I was 22, I had actually enrolled in small Orthodox seminary outside of Utica, NY. I was traveling when the first bomb came. It seems so long ago. I hardly remember how old I am now. 26? 27? 23? It doesn't matter anyways, my mind feel into the psychological safety of sleep. The blackness was comforting.
Pop pop pop. They we're coming again. I awoke with a start. Why did they want this? This place has nothing?
This place has everything...as long we are, there is something against them.
Where the fuck are You?
Forgive me.
Pop pop pop.
Everybody out here where are the mortars my arm why dont those bastards go down ah shit im hit im done Oh God Oh God Oh God stop crying give me your arm your fine get inside WHY WONT YOU DIE shit there goes his head, damn it's always the nice ones that get their faces blown off i would really like some dinner and a house and the summer on a lake when did the darkness come EVERYBODY BACK SHUT UP SHUT UP TURN OUT THE LAMPS DONT EVEN BREATHE
We had retreated beyond the plaza, into the basement of an old movie theater complex. The parking lot was blown up from airstrikes, and the basement was accessible without going in the building itself. We all slunk low and stayed quiet. They might pass over us. Shut the fuck up. The metallic chink of the soldiers passed by. I cried. I cried hard. "You okay?" I choked on my tears. When would this stop. Why wont you make this stop? you arent there. thats why. im running and shooting and not dying and seeing faces blown apart and soldiers kachinking by and im still here and nothing else exists but death and running and bullets and dirty water.
I slept well for the first time since the first bomb.