An
Unknown SoldierHe was diagnosed and categorized by the men in sterilized white lab coats. Through their thin shields he could see the red of their blood moving. Cold hands, perfectly manicured, held a file on his recent episodes. In the file were coolly calculated textbook guesses about his history. His name had been deleted, for double-blind purposes, by a thin coat of liquid paper.
The men surrounding him had clear and pale, perhaps Germanic, eyes which were mostly expressionless. Their lips curled in that same bored fascination which sends me running, undefended, from the muddy trench to lunge in a squeeze their fucking translucent throats until their eyes roll back into their heads shivering, just to get rid of that sick smile. For good.
He lay on his stomach atop the rumpled sheets of the hospital bed. One elbow rested below his chest; and, as though he aimed a rifle, his index finger followed his eyes, pointing all the while. He alternated between a fixed-ahead stare at the blank stucco wall, seemingly snow blind, and contorted wriggling snakelike on-the-belly motions, tracking some kind of rapidly moving threat.
He was, of course, completely naked. Which was clearly noted in the files.
The men stood around him close to the doorway, nodding at each other, murmuring, and taking notes. Occasionally he would blow each of them away with his imaginary submachine gun and look through them out into the hallway beyond. Past the overly-lit florescence of the corridor, and its angularity, could be seen a small rectangular window. And beyond that, a late afternoon winter sky with streaky touches of the coming sunset.
Tearing his gaze from the curled lips and sunset, he bellied down to the end of the bed, and wedged himself into a corner, where he was surrounded by the mild comfort of crumbly white plaster. Which peeled a bit against his skin. It was the type of plaster that would betray a wall, crumbling into oblivion if it were to be kicked long and hard with a thick leather boot. His boots were not currently in evidence.
One of the men separated himself from the rest and ushered the others out of the door with a whispered code word. Remaining inside, he closed the door behind him in a heavy locking thud, and slid the long bolt precisely into the frame, using a key which he replaced in his pocket. The man strode with clicking shoes toward the patient on the bed. Upon which, the patient compressed himself further and further into the corner, his eyes locked into position, looking just through the man. The blood in him is very warm. It pulses loudly, echoing in the room. The patient hears this.
Unfolding a small plastic chair beside the bed and sitting down, the man in the white coat peered at the patient's naked body and into his eyes. The patient was breathing rapidly and heavily, eyes unblinking and locked, staring through the man, towards the door. "What are you doing, young man?" The man asked, his pen poised above his note pad at the ready.
Silence and dark clouds gathered. Thoughts joined up with them. I am a soldier and you are the enemy. You're already dead at my hands. There is a war out there — in here. Not so lucky this time. Forget those ideas in which you thought you might not be defeated, deleted, rubbed out all at once. You were mistaken, you'll soon find out. We both shall see what will come to be.
The patient's eyes suddenly focused on the man, and he smiled slightly. The smile was almost sweet. The man looked into the eyes and there was almost innocence in there. Purity of focus. There was a farcical laugh way in the distance of them. There was also a kind of piercing which reached his chest and tightened around his lungs. Breathing seemed to become more difficult. The man shifted in his chair in discomfort and thought up several more well-rehearsed probing personal questions to ask the patient, some which he thought might elicit a verbal response.
"Tell me about why you alternate so severely between lifelessness and convulsive activity..." He probed. That would provide the perfect framework upon which the patient might stretch a response.
There is a random motion of being alive and not being hit, and I don't make myself a target if I evade predictability. You see. Like a spot of grease in the pan, I move and slide to not get burned. I blend like a lizard into the mud of this infernal jungle floor. I freeze like ice. Strategy varies with occasion, and at times there is the need for well-poised gun and highly tuned perception in order to detect. The warm blood of you. No one wants to drown in a pool of their own viscera. I do what I have to do. I survive.
Once again the patient smiled slightly. The man detected what seemed to be an almost certain merriment. And that jabbing in his chest. But there was no verbal response. The man took some notes. Not his usual pen, he noted. Spontaneously now, "Who is the enemy?"
You are one and there are many others. They infest the coldness of germs. Dirty and causing sickness from within their sterile shells which eventually dissolve in my system and lodge as small, intractable particles in the very core of my being. Where they fever. I have chosen to fight them, not knowing the size of my own army, nor theirs. It is a lonely, losing battle. To the death, it seems, for their control is death already. I must struggle.
He let the question linger in the air a long time, but still no reply. The man noted it in his file, and, frustrated, rose from his chair and clicked off towards the door, snapping his file shut with an echoing slap on the way. You make sounds like machine gun fire from the nearby bush. The patient aimed at his bloody red back. It was hot and wet. Dripping. Infected already in the moist tropical heat.
Reaching the door, the man felt the patient's gaze crawling up and down his spine as palpable as the eight legs of a giant dark spider moving there. He shivered as though sweating in a fever. He quickly unlocked the door and shut it swiftly behind him. Even outside in the well-lit corridor, he felt the creeping sensation on his back and shuddered again. His chest felt tight, and his mouth dry.
He walked quickly down the florescent angular corridor towards the small rectangular window. Arriving there, he looked out and saw a cold and clear winter sky fading into evening. A thin dying streak of red stretched the length of the horizon. He rested his cheek against the glass of the window, trying to cool the heat in him. He was shivering quite uncontrollably now. And sweating. His face against the window felt relieved, but the urge for fresh air, cold and dry, was becoming unbearable. His chest was tight and his body shook violently beneath him and he felt his head bang hard against the glass, which shattered and crashed to the floor around him. His face felt wet. And cool.
The man put his head out the window and breathed deeply. The air felt clean and his head started to clear, his knees to steady. He looked down, several stories to the grounds below and saw a clipped lawn and sparsely planted flower bed — nothing blooming this time of year. The sky was increasingly darkening. He shook his head, spat briefly, then brought it back inside. He turned just in time to see the naked patient behind him spring from a crouching position on the floor towards him. Fingers gripped and tightened around his neck. His mouth tasted salty. His eyes dimmed. His chest tightened infinitely.
Your eyes roll back into your head and you shudder your curled lips back from whence they came. You are now more human than you ever were. I send you flying. Back to peace time skies, towards the darkness lit by pale moonlight. To the sky with all its hopes and dreams, shadows and depths, heart and its many tangles. May you live free and feel there.