Short Stories

1. Soldier's Lament

You never stop seeing their faces.

No matter how evil they were, no matter how long ago, their faces, those faces, never leave you. It is their final revenge, a mocking go-to-hell from each and every one of them. For every person you murder, every life you take, those memories eat away at your own, like maggots in dead flesh. I can still remember that first man, the first time I killed. His face is frozen, crystal-clear behind my eyelids every time I blink, every time I sleep, or dream. That sunken face, and those eyes, haunted and sad, reproaching me, are the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see before sleep. They will never leave me.

I don't even remember why I killed him, what battle we were in, whether he or I was at fault. But I can still see his face, the sunken lines that spoke of pain and hardship, the coarse beard like vicious wires, each hard year spent toiling for breath, for a life that mattered. I can still see the calloused skin, the thin hair like faint wisps of cloud, and there's a numbness in my head, a burning cold that steals over my body, and I can't move, I can't breathe...

And when the panic calms, when the guilt of twenty years of war and death has subsided, when there's nothing but silence and isolation, those eyes stare out at me from the void. Unspeakably sad, they gaze at me as if beseeching me not to do it, not to do the one thing that will break me in my very soul. But I do it anyway. And those sorrowful eyes, pools of regret, shatter into thousands of shards of memory and loss, sharp as a dagger. They cut into me, splinters of glass and hate, every pore, every wiry hair, every year of his life that I have stolen from him.

What right do I have to take that away? What right does anyone have to steal something so precious?

These questions; they have haunted me, hurt me, for years, gnawing away at my soul like rats. There is no escape, not from the eyes that plead with me, not from the hundreds of other eyes that are frozen in my mind, the sorrow and the loss and the grief that will never stop hunting me. I try to live my life, to carry on, but I blink, and his coarse beard flashes before me; sleep, and I see his calloused skin, so vivid, even after so long; dream, and he shatters into dust and memory before me.

You never stop seeing their faces.

I cast away my gun, my uniform, all those contracts I signed, all the medals I've earned. I watch them sink to the bottom of a deep lake, until there is nothing but my crimson jacket in my hand. I throw it, and it lands on the surface, floats there for a moment, spreading on the water like a patch of blood, and then sinks. And yet that image does not leave me, the years engraved in that man's face, the skin that tells his story of pain and toil. They left me, all the people I cared about, and now I have no one left. No one.

You never stop seeing their faces.

They only seem to grow clearer over time, and I cannot escape their reproachful eyes. They watch me, day and night, like dark gods. I can see the man's homespun clothes, the way his beard covers his lips, sealing them — he cannot speak to me, cannot tell me his story, the story I most want to hear. I want to know what his life was like, what he did, who he loved, what he fought for. I want to know the story of the man I killed. Part of me feels like that is a bribery, not to the dead man, but to myself. But I still want to know.

Perhaps I want to know because it will remind me that this despair and grief and pain — that this is not the end. There is a better world out there, and maybe I should fight for it. Perhaps I want to know because the sorrowful eyes deserve to tell their story, deserve to have someone who will listen. Perhaps it is to convince myself that mine will not be a story of darkness. That this will not be the story.

I will fold it into myself, these people, this fear, but it will not be the whole story. It will not be my story.

I do not want to stop seeing their faces.

I want to remember them, remember every detail, because they deserve not to be forgotten. I will not forget his face, the sunken lines that speak of a life lived to the full, the coarse beard like unbreakable wires, each hard year spent toiling for a life that mattered, for that better world. I will not forget the calloused skin, the thin hair like faint wisps of cloud, and those eyes, staring out at me from the void. Full of agony and despair and fear. Full of joy and laughter and pain. Life — life is pain. Pain, and joy. Joy because of the pain.

I see it in the man's face. In every line and age mark. In every wispy hair. A life lived — in happiness. The pain of leaving this world because of how wonderful it had been.

I do not want to stop seeing their faces.

They do not deserve to be forgotten.