Short Story: Killing Time
You will find yourself walking in a jungle holding an automatic rifle in your hands. Mosquitoes will buzz about your head and in your head, where a cloud of angry hornets will ruin your concentration. Sweat will bead on your forehead and drip into your eyes; squinting will do little good against the sun cast through the water.
You will be carrying the tools of the trade, all the equipment necessary to be a hunter and to be the hunted. Your frame will be outfitted with pounds of metal, canvas, and containers. There is food, dehydrated and otherwise, in your pack, along with bedding, bullets, and letters from home. The weight of your body drags you deeper into the mire with every step you take.
Paranoia will grip your mind when you hear noises in the underbrush. Creepers and vines wrap round your heart as you try to decipher the thicket’s puzzle. Noises become beasts and beasts become men when you question what your senses tell you. You will long for the simplicity of dirt roads and old neighborhoods, shops that close on Sunday, and community events that mark the slow progression of time for the elders of quiet towns. No one is searching for you there. No one cares where you are. They don’t want to kill you, only bury you when it is your time.
You will see your point man raise his hand. You and the rest of the men will stop, as the jungle emits unnatural silence. There is a twig-snap and the soldier to your left will drop with a hole between his eyes. Your innards scream and churn, but your body is frozen. Rough hands near you grab your pack and pull you to the earth. You will feel like you are falling into the grave.
You see the gritty jaw line of your friend, set in stone and etched with fear as he looks into your eyes. He will not make it back to camp. He will die on this patrol. You know it, just as surely as you know that the Baptist church holds bake sales twice a year, and that Tom’s Auto is the only place to get a decent tune-up. He seems to know it too. His eyes are already the glassy orbs of a dead man, staring through impenetrable mist, trying to make out the forms of the living.
That is when all hell will break loose. You will hear the 1,000 round black-cat firecracker salute, thousands of miles away from the celebration. The air will whistle and vibrate, perforated and punctured by metal and fear. You will point your gun in the direction of the loudest sounds and pull the trigger, spraying wildly into the unknown. You cannot see anything beyond the haze of gunfire and muzzle blasts. There is only you, your dead friend, and your weapon.
You will become separated from your company as you all retreat from the fire. Out of the corner of your eye, the last member of your company you see is your friend, falling face-first into a small creek. There are holes in his back, and in his chest. He doesn’t move, and he doesn’t seem to care that his clothes are getting soaked. When he gets back to camp, you plan to mock him for being so careless. This is where the world begins to fray.
Fibers and threads will start to tear at the edges of what is real as you find yourself alone, running through the jungle. That is when you will hear him approaching. He has no face at this distance. He is only a uniform, inflated with an unnamed body, holding a foreign weapon in his hands. You peer around a corner of a tree, and see him approaching you. You will make a small sound, something like a whimper, and it will cause him to twitch abruptly towards where you are hiding. He raises his rifle and begins stalking across the jungle towards you.
This is when you begin praying.
You went to church for years, because you had to. Your mother would haul you out of bed and slap your Sunday best on you before presenting you before the world. In church, God was a big man with a stick who punished sinners and unwed mothers. He was the fire and brimstone deity of pagan nightmares, the plague-sender of Egypt. He was the reason you weren’t sleeping in on Sunday mornings, or fishing with your buddies.
Now you realize that he’s the only thing in the world left with you in this moment. There is you, God, and him. God stands between you and him, and you pray past all the ritual words that you’ve memorized over the years.
Please God, don’t make me kill him, Jesus Christ, I don’t want to die or kill him, I don’t want to kill, don’t make me do it, Jesus help me, oh God, I can’t kill him, don’t make me do it, please please please, just make him go away, oh God.
There will be tears streaming down your face when you hear the footsteps on the other side of the tree. Your fingers will tighten around the stock and trigger of your rifle, and your muscles will begin to tense and quake.
Please God . . .
You will hear him breathing heavily, like a frightened animal.
Please God, don’t make me do it . . .
You point your gun at the edge of the tree where he will emerge. Your arms are shaking and tears flow silently down your face now. Through the haze, you will see his dark shape cross the threshold between his old life and his new death.
He will look briefly at you. He looks very surprised. So he does have a face after all. He will look young, younger than you. In the brief moments as he is swinging his rifle to bear on you, his eyes wide and getting wider, you realize he looks a lot like a kid you used to know. A kid you once fished with, a kid you used to play baseball with.
Please God, I’m sorry . . .
You will pull the trigger. You will spray six bullets into his chest. There will be a red cloud behind him, and a red splash in front of him. He will still look surprised. He will fall backwards, the force of the bullets pushing him back several feet.
You will stand over him, your rifle pointed at his head, screaming, “Don’t move, motherfucker, or I’ll kill you!” There are bubbles on his chest where his breath is coming through. You will watch him drown on land, and you will be screaming at him the entire time. And in your head, you will be screaming too. Only it goes something like this:
Oh Jesus Christ, forgive me, oh my God, I killed him, I killed him, I’m sorry, please don’t make me, I’m sorry, oh God, oh God, I killed him! I shot him in the chest, I shot him in the chest, he’s dying right here, he’s dying, I killed him, Oh god, please, please, I’m sorry . . .
You will do all this on a Sunday.
Except right now you are sitting on a tarmac, waiting to get into a plane to take you to the jungles, to take you away from home, from church, from fishing, from bake sales, from the big man with the stick. You are waiting to go where you are going to kill your first man. You are waiting to become more than a man and less than a human. You are waiting to be. You are waiting.
But today, you are still a child.
Copyright 2005, Elijah Hubbard
You will be carrying the tools of the trade, all the equipment necessary to be a hunter and to be the hunted. Your frame will be outfitted with pounds of metal, canvas, and containers. There is food, dehydrated and otherwise, in your pack, along with bedding, bullets, and letters from home. The weight of your body drags you deeper into the mire with every step you take.
Paranoia will grip your mind when you hear noises in the underbrush. Creepers and vines wrap round your heart as you try to decipher the thicket’s puzzle. Noises become beasts and beasts become men when you question what your senses tell you. You will long for the simplicity of dirt roads and old neighborhoods, shops that close on Sunday, and community events that mark the slow progression of time for the elders of quiet towns. No one is searching for you there. No one cares where you are. They don’t want to kill you, only bury you when it is your time.
You will see your point man raise his hand. You and the rest of the men will stop, as the jungle emits unnatural silence. There is a twig-snap and the soldier to your left will drop with a hole between his eyes. Your innards scream and churn, but your body is frozen. Rough hands near you grab your pack and pull you to the earth. You will feel like you are falling into the grave.
You see the gritty jaw line of your friend, set in stone and etched with fear as he looks into your eyes. He will not make it back to camp. He will die on this patrol. You know it, just as surely as you know that the Baptist church holds bake sales twice a year, and that Tom’s Auto is the only place to get a decent tune-up. He seems to know it too. His eyes are already the glassy orbs of a dead man, staring through impenetrable mist, trying to make out the forms of the living.
That is when all hell will break loose. You will hear the 1,000 round black-cat firecracker salute, thousands of miles away from the celebration. The air will whistle and vibrate, perforated and punctured by metal and fear. You will point your gun in the direction of the loudest sounds and pull the trigger, spraying wildly into the unknown. You cannot see anything beyond the haze of gunfire and muzzle blasts. There is only you, your dead friend, and your weapon.
You will become separated from your company as you all retreat from the fire. Out of the corner of your eye, the last member of your company you see is your friend, falling face-first into a small creek. There are holes in his back, and in his chest. He doesn’t move, and he doesn’t seem to care that his clothes are getting soaked. When he gets back to camp, you plan to mock him for being so careless. This is where the world begins to fray.
Fibers and threads will start to tear at the edges of what is real as you find yourself alone, running through the jungle. That is when you will hear him approaching. He has no face at this distance. He is only a uniform, inflated with an unnamed body, holding a foreign weapon in his hands. You peer around a corner of a tree, and see him approaching you. You will make a small sound, something like a whimper, and it will cause him to twitch abruptly towards where you are hiding. He raises his rifle and begins stalking across the jungle towards you.
This is when you begin praying.
You went to church for years, because you had to. Your mother would haul you out of bed and slap your Sunday best on you before presenting you before the world. In church, God was a big man with a stick who punished sinners and unwed mothers. He was the fire and brimstone deity of pagan nightmares, the plague-sender of Egypt. He was the reason you weren’t sleeping in on Sunday mornings, or fishing with your buddies.
Now you realize that he’s the only thing in the world left with you in this moment. There is you, God, and him. God stands between you and him, and you pray past all the ritual words that you’ve memorized over the years.
Please God, don’t make me kill him, Jesus Christ, I don’t want to die or kill him, I don’t want to kill, don’t make me do it, Jesus help me, oh God, I can’t kill him, don’t make me do it, please please please, just make him go away, oh God.
There will be tears streaming down your face when you hear the footsteps on the other side of the tree. Your fingers will tighten around the stock and trigger of your rifle, and your muscles will begin to tense and quake.
Please God . . .
You will hear him breathing heavily, like a frightened animal.
Please God, don’t make me do it . . .
You point your gun at the edge of the tree where he will emerge. Your arms are shaking and tears flow silently down your face now. Through the haze, you will see his dark shape cross the threshold between his old life and his new death.
He will look briefly at you. He looks very surprised. So he does have a face after all. He will look young, younger than you. In the brief moments as he is swinging his rifle to bear on you, his eyes wide and getting wider, you realize he looks a lot like a kid you used to know. A kid you once fished with, a kid you used to play baseball with.
Please God, I’m sorry . . .
You will pull the trigger. You will spray six bullets into his chest. There will be a red cloud behind him, and a red splash in front of him. He will still look surprised. He will fall backwards, the force of the bullets pushing him back several feet.
You will stand over him, your rifle pointed at his head, screaming, “Don’t move, motherfucker, or I’ll kill you!” There are bubbles on his chest where his breath is coming through. You will watch him drown on land, and you will be screaming at him the entire time. And in your head, you will be screaming too. Only it goes something like this:
Oh Jesus Christ, forgive me, oh my God, I killed him, I killed him, I’m sorry, please don’t make me, I’m sorry, oh God, oh God, I killed him! I shot him in the chest, I shot him in the chest, he’s dying right here, he’s dying, I killed him, Oh god, please, please, I’m sorry . . .
You will do all this on a Sunday.
Except right now you are sitting on a tarmac, waiting to get into a plane to take you to the jungles, to take you away from home, from church, from fishing, from bake sales, from the big man with the stick. You are waiting to go where you are going to kill your first man. You are waiting to become more than a man and less than a human. You are waiting to be. You are waiting.
But today, you are still a child.
Copyright 2005, Elijah Hubbard
posted by Elijah at 4:53 PM
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