Vigilance

A growing slit of light breaks the darkness. Dirt crumbles down my blackened
face, easing the weight on my eyes. It takes the hardest effort to crane my neck
upwards, but I marvel at what I could not see just moments ago. The sky is a sea
of crimson gold, swelling with the dark underbellies of passing clouds.

My mind tells me that it is warm, but all I can feel is a numbing cold. My throat is
as dry as metal nails, and I cannot command my arms and legs to move.

I discover that I am half-submerged in a murky pool. My memory flares. This

hell: once a barren plain, now a gluttonous mire pocked with graves and
waterlogged craters. Accursed trenches and whale-oiled boots. Wading in
bloodied mud, tripping over drowned bodies, tangles of limbs that jut towards
the sky like skeleton trees…

I can fight no longer. Am I selfish to feel relief? A bird would never be happy to be
stripped of its wings. Then again, I cannot ascertain that its true purpose is to fly.

As futile as the war, my thoughts wander into the past. I can smell Ma’s fresh
chicken pot pie baking in the oven; I can see my wife holding my newborn son,
luscious curls spilling over rosy cheeks; I can feel the heat of a Christmas fire
lighting a home of mirth and love.

I realize that Christmas is only 2 months away, but it is a distant revelation. My

eyes, rejuvenated by the vibrant glow of sunset, grow heavy beneath the blanket
of night. The world compresses into a narrowing slit once more. My vision closes
to frayed edges of towers and ruins, to specks of starlight lodged in grains of
cloud.