Behavior Report 9

Dearest Love,

How do I describe the impossible? How do I tell you everything but not everything? You are my love, my light. You are what pushes me forward when I have no will to move. And now this. My imagination is not running rampant. I’m not coming up with visions. I am seeing death stare upon me. It stares through me. Within me. It sees everything about my past and my future. It calls me by name. I do everything I can to look away and ignore it. But it calls and calls, begs for my attention, and I cannot look away.

I cannot yell.

I cannot breathe.

Instinct tells me to squeeze tight into a ball in my foxhole.

Quinten’s eyes are open but there is no life in them. A single red line slowly rolls down his forehead and along the bridge of his nose like the first raindrop on a window from an impending storm.

I don’t know what to do. Do I get out? Do I stay in? Is there a Kraut outside? Are there many Krauts outside? I sit as still as I can, holding my legs tight to my chest, mouth agape, doing everything I possibly can to hear anything above me. The birds stopped chirping because of the crack, but the wind remains, gentle and constant. I think of the wind like a river, hoping that it will carry me away, far away, to some far-off land that isn’t concerned about war. Where people live normal, happy, lives and mind their own. Oh, how I long for a quant French cottage with smoke puffing softly from a chimney.

I don’t get my wish. Instead, I hear two voices ratchet off words that sound as if they are formed from machines. Each syllable is formed in the back of the throat and comes out as if they are trying to clear out phlegm. Their footsteps are cautious and slow. One steps on the square above my head. Dirt rains and clinks on my helmet. The storm I have feared all this time is finally overhead and my rifle is still outside. Quinten’s rifle is wedged underneath his body. The branches strain under the Kraut’s weight. He’s going to fall through and find me and there’s nothing I can do. I feel like screaming but I hold still.

My thoughts don’t turn to living or self-preservation. I only feel regret. I’ve let everyone down in my life. I’ve done nothing with the years given to me and I can’t help but feel that I squandered an opportunity to live a fuller life, a happier life, a life filled with reality rather than imaginative problems. At this moment, time is the only thing keeping me alive.  

One Kraut jumps into my foxhole and lands in front of Quinten, facing him. He crouches down, awkwardly, and starts searching through Quinten’s pockets. Every find is held up to the sunlight to be examined before dropping it to the ground. He lets ammunition and money and a deck of cards scatter onto the floor. Nothing gathers his interest until he finds Quinten’s letter. What does he want? Why the letter? The Kraut’s dirty fingers tear open the envelop and unfolds the paper.

He reads it.

Not only did this monster kill Quinten in cold blood, but he invades his privacy and laughs. How unforgiveable of a savage do you need to be to do that? He laughs? Worse, the Kraut carelessly tosses the paper aside as if it means nothing. I feel a strange electric pulse flow through my arms and into my hands. The charge moves them to release my legs and then begin to reach toward the letter. It’s as if my hands are magnetic, drawn to the paper, to the words, to the promise. Inch by inch, my hands extend further and further until they are close enough to touch the back of that Unforgiveable Savage. I push my hands away from him and towards the paper.

Just when I am about to reach the paper, the Kraut pulls a large knife from his belt. I jump back. Waning sunlight glints upon the steel and I see small bits of my reflection. Dark rings pool about my eyes just like Earl’s. My cheeks turn inward, concave, upon a gaunt face. I don’t recognize myself.

In all the times before, when danger was near, I felt a burning inside my chest like a hot steel orb melting through my organs. I feel nothing but cold in my foxhole. Death is inevitable. Why go through the effort of warming myself when I will only be cold soon?

He raises the knife and adjusts his footing for what I believe is the strike that will send me with Quinten. Instead of swinging toward me, the Kraut plunges the knife into Quinten and removes it filled with his blood. He holds up the blade and whispers something. His voice is deep and gravely. The cadence is level and slow, like a prayer.

He adjusts his feet again, this time sending out one boot further out or as far as my foxhole will let him, and that’s when I see it. His boots are marked with notches. Small cuts that appear to be tallies.

My heart starts beating wildly. It’s the same man who I showed mercy to in the trench.

He uses the knife to mark another line. Deaths. The countless marks on his boots are a reminder of the number of people he’s killed. Who does that? Who finds joy in killing? What kind of a world do we live in where people are celebrated for killing? If I was concerned before with how I fit into the grand scheme of everything, seeing this Unforgiveable Savage mark off another kill made me realize that I don’t have any place. No sane man does.

The Kraut stands up and assembles a series of words that make the other Kraut laugh. More laughing. What is so funny? They send more words back and forth with the efficiency of a wireless morse code transmitter and receiver. I spent hours in a class to learn Kraut and nothing I learned came out of their mouths. For all I know, the one in the foxhole could be saying, “There’s another one in here, hiding, afraid to fight.”

But what can I do with no weapon and no courage?

A chocolate bar falls from Quinten’s shirt pocket and bounces around until it settles directly in front of me. The Kraut bends down to pick it up. I remain as still as possible, hoping to blend in with the shadows. His head begins to turn toward me. I refuse to move. I pray to blend in with the soil. No weapon. No leverage to fight back. I can only submit. Every centimeter his head turns feels like an hour passing, building up to a moment that will mean death for me.

But just when he’s about to see me, a blast of gunfire erupts and grabs his attention. He springs out of the foxhole, using Quinten as a ladder. The Kraut’s feet crunch away on the leaves above. I hear gunshots. Yelling. More gun shots. All the sounds are muffled inside my foxhole, yet my heartbeat is crystal clear. I can’t tell if they are our rifles or theirs. I don’t recognize any voices. Successive blasts go off followed by more yelling. I can’t move. My body presses against the soil like it did when Lieutenant Talbott and I were in the trench. Then the loudest explosion of gunfire erupts. More screaming. More yelling. My heart beats erratically. I lose my breath. The sounds outside continue to pin me against the ground. Each blast feels like a knife cutting into my stomach, as if The Unforgiveable Savage is still in the foxhole with me, jabbing and slicing at my body. The pain comes from inaction. My throat burns. My heart beats several times quickly, stops, then beats again. The pain manifests itself because I can do nothing.

Then silence.

The wind returns. Tree tops creak. Leaves rustle. Nature has already forgotten what man has done.

I cannot.

My body refuses to let go, yet I feel myself being pulled in opposite directions. Cry. Scream. Hide. Break free. I only think of myself. I don’t have the will to think of anyone else. I know this sounds terrible, but I can only think, “Am I still alive?” I still feel as if I’ve been stabbed over and over and over from every gunshot that took place. Checking for blood requires that I let go of my legs and there’s no way I will do that. I feel that if I release my legs, my insides will come pouring out.

Quinten stares at me and I can’t look back at him because he represents the likely fate of everyone else in my squad. His letter takes my full attention. One piece of paper folded three times and carelessly dropped to the ground. Black ink letters loop and hook and carry on like a river etching its way through rock and dirt. Somewhere within the rapids is a promise made to someone Quinten left behind. His letter didn’t save him. His promise didn’t save him.

My Love, you may not want to read any further because of my actions. Why would anyone care about a coward? Why would anyone care about a man who did nothing in the face of absolute horror? I don’t blame you. All I can write is that this is the lowest of my lows. The beats of my heart slow to a crawl. I don’t know how further I can fall other than to die. Are there others like me who cower in the face of Fear?

Quinten’s letter is all I have that can redeem me. I may have not liked the man, but I can fulfill his promise. I can bring back some joy to those loved ones left behind. The act doesn’t require me to carry a gun to fight off hundreds of Krauts. I can read his letter and fulfill the promise with the abilities I do have. There is a purpose in that.

I wait several minutes within the silence before I reach out and take Quinten’s letter. Cautiously, quietly, I crease the folds of the paper and place it into my own shirt pocket in front of my heart. There’s a sense of energy the emanates from my pocket. Purpose? I don’t know. It does nothing to speed up my heart. Each beat takes longer to spark. I take several breaths between. My fingers grow cold.

No voices carry on outside. No leaves crunch under the feet of my aggressors. There is no evidence that anyone stands near my foxhole and yet, I can’t move. My entire body feels cold. My hearts feels as if it has stopped. Am I dead? Did I die? How? When? Is death a state of consciousness where the body refuses to move?

I try to breathe.

I honestly try to pull air into my body, but my lungs refuse to act.

My mind continues to imagine hundreds of Krauts standing outside of my foxhole, wondering why one soldier has two rifles nearby. With the last ounces of my being, I wash away those thoughts and force myself to look beyond to a higher power.

‘God, hear me. Please hear me. Please give me one more chance. One more opportunity.’ I close my eyes for what I fear is the last time. I seek forgiveness and redemption. Silence fills my foxhole like a horrific fog that covers up Quinten and forces me to look inward.

The energy about the letter in my shirt pocket continues to grow. Pledges. Promises. Life. Loved ones. The strong L sounds force my tongue to grip the top of my mouth. I repeat the words “Loved ones,” over and over again. They serve as a primer, gently squeezing my lungs to release every bit of remaining air inside my body. When the last of the air leaves, I sit still, sullen.

Darkness overtakes me.

I don’t know how long I remain still, without a thought or heartbeat.

But then, something happens. A shell breaks off my skin. The energy from Quinten’s letter roots into my chest, finds all my arteries, and expands light into every single nerve. Air rushes into my lungs with an expressive gasp. I’m released from the dirt wall.

My heart beats once.

My eyes open.

The letter. The promise. I have a purpose.

My heart beats a second time and I realize that this is the start of my new life. Man is never given a second chance at life, but for some unknown reason, I am given the impossible. No booming voices come down from the sky. I don’t see Jesus or God or Mary or any other deity. All I sense is an energy that builds up from my chest and expands to every limb.

It is dark outside when I open my eyes. Crickets chirp. The wind is gone. Stillness lays about the land in a coolness that only night can bring. I remain in the foxhole, but Quinten is lost to the shadows. Light from the starry night catches in one of his eyes.

Rumbling begins in the distance, and I think, ‘A bombing campaign? At night?’ They are hearty, horrible grumbles that roll between the trees above and through the grass and over my foxhole to fade off and create a profound silence. The type of silence that can invite Anxiety to play in my mind. Fortunately, before any ideas can truly take hold, another rumble quakes and starts the whole process over again.

Between each silent break, I start to think about how every man has a limit. How each man has different tolerances for pain and suffering and happiness. Some can face fear without flinching. Other men cower at the smallest trouble. My limit is death. Facing death. The “Fwip Snaps” and the red clouds and the smallest trickle of blood running down a forehead. Every man finds his limit at some point. I found mine buried several feet in the Earth.

…

A sharp clap of thunder jolts me awake to a heavy downpour. I’m still in my foxhole. The world has gone black. Raindrops clap against the canopy leaves above like a nightmarish applause. I shake my head free from the fog of unconsciousness. I don’t know how it happened. Did I fall asleep? Frankly, I don’t know how I could. My head was spinning before. Hundreds of thoughts about valor and bravery and purpose and fear and … death … No. I didn’t fall asleep. I finally broke. I was reborn. My body couldn’t take the energy and collapsed.

Or was it all a dream? I am still in my foxhole, but darkness prevails. The earth blots out any possible light from the night inside the wound I’ve created in her crust. Maybe the gunshots and the yelling and The Unforgiveable Savage and Quinten falling were all part of an extravagant nightmare?

Lightning strikes, flashing my foxhole full of light like a photographer’s flash bulb. The burst lasts no more than a fraction of a second. My eyes act like film, capturing whatever the light exposed. A scene develops behind my eyelids once the darkness returns. My hopes for a dream are dashed when I recognize Quinten’s body still stuck in a free fall into my foxhole. Several inches of water and blood assemble in the low spot I purposefully dug out to keep myself dry. Quinten rests in that spot. The last piece of scenery develops that I recognize. Quinten’s face is half underwater with one eye still above, staring at me.

Goosebumps pucker my skin. I need to leave. I need to find and follow the purpose that once crystallized in me. I push against the roof, but the rain has turned the dirt that I mounded around the edges into a sloshy mud that fights against every thrust. I curse and yell underneath the furious rumblings of the storm. I get up onto my feet, hunched over, and pound my back against the wood square. The harder I try, the stronger the mud bonds to the roof. The stifling smell of wet Earth, blood, and death collects and churns inside my stomach.

I can’t keep anything inside me.

Vomit and tears and grunts of pain collide into a shockwave that practically turns my body inside out. I wait for it to end. I hope that what I release is the remnants of my past life, the life of constant anxiety, of fear, of cowardice. Thunder explodes overhead. Wind violently pushes the trees to crack and their leaves to whoosh. I embrace the power to make my last push.

‘Three.’

‘Two.’

‘One.’

Just before I push, the most horrific, unnerving scream fills the forest.