More from the "Archives"

Hey, this is another quick short I did for my Creative Writing course last year. Again, apologies if you've read it before. Not much time for writing during the holidays as I am pretty much working every day. So I've dug this one out of the "archives."

I'm working on a few new story ideas though, just got to find the time to get them down. Should have some new stuff up next week.

This short was part of a 5 story zine that was made as a group project for the course. I was inadvertantly reminded of the zine project recently and with ANZAC day today this story popped into mind. Hope you enjoy it.


Homecoming
Tim Harvey

White light, white heat above me. I squinted my eyes against the harsh sun shining through the dense jungle overhead. As I looked down, I could see a gaping hole in my shoulder. I remembered the impact of the bullet; it sliced through my back and ripped its way through my flesh, bursting out the front. My right arm was paralysed so I used my legs to drag my battered and starved torso, just enough to move out of the sharp light. I could hear the rhythmic hum of a chopper far away; whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

How did I get here?

'Sarge.' I ran the cleaning rod down the barrel of my M16, dragging a thick stream of mud with it as I pulled it out.
'Sarge.' I wiped the rod on a rag and stuck it back into the rifle.
'Sergeant Freeman?'
'What?' I replied without looking up at the young private standing in the flap of my tent.
'Sergeant, Lieutenant Wills wants to see you,' was his reply. My lip curled and I bit into the cigarette dangling from my mouth. I looked up at the private; he was younger than I expected, eighteen or nineteen at the most. He had a peace badge on his collar.
'What does he want?' I restrained my frustration.
'Sergeant, we're up for patrol.'

Ten days into patrol; our legs were cramped from crouching, our faces and bodies coated in mud and itching from mosquito bites. It was winter back home in Pittsburgh but I couldn't remember home. All I had was 'Nam. I couldn't remember my white house with the rose garden in the front.
'Contact!'
I couldn't remember my wife in a yellow summer dress holding a perspiring jug of cool, sweet lemonade.
'Get down!'
I couldn't remember Nerissa, running home from the school bus, books in hand and a smile on her face.
'Oh God! Oh God!'
I wish I could see her smile again, just one last look at her sweet face, her shining golden hair.
'Sarge! For Chrissakes get down!'

It was night now. My men lay asleep around me, not moving, not making a sound. They were well trained. The young private with the peace badge lay face down in the mud next to me. I borrowed some water from his canteen and let it rest against his leg when I was done. My eyelids began to droop and I instinctively jerked them open, I had to stay awake to protect my men. They drooped again and my vision became blurred. The light of the moon through the trees illuminated the purple smoke swirling around us. My eyelids drooped again, and this time I let them fall.

A breeze stroked my face as I slept. Whoosh.
'Daddy.'
I felt the hole in my shoulder, but I was too weak to open my eyes. Whoosh.
'Daddy?'
The breeze stroked my cheek and I felt delicate fingers slide across my face. Whoosh.
'I didn't protect them, honey,' I uttered. 'Why couldn't I protect you?'
The breeze wiped the tear that slid down my cheek. Whoosh.
'Daddy?'
'What is it Nerissa?'
'Hold on Daddy, I'll wait for you.' Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
It was my my forty-second birthday today. The first day of the rest of my life.