Life Among the Ashes
When the day-after dawned and the world awoke from the ashes of nuclear war,
I hated the gas masks, but I hated choking on the smoke more, that smoke that
curled thick and black from the burning bodies. And, I hated the stench that
accompanied it; that stench made even the hardiest Marine empty his stomach and
became useless for activity for days afterward. Only those of us in service,
and some others had the masks. Most people who worked the body handling details
were civilians and they usually worked with bandanas or make-shift bandanas
over their noses and mouths. It helped keep out some of the plague, but not all
the stench. Maybe I didn’t hate my gas mask that much.
Those fires were awesome and awful to watch, watching the pretty dead things
vanish, consumed by the flames. They burned all the time; there was always dead
to feed those flames. It was those flames that made me awake from the person I
had become; it made me wake up the freedom I lost so long ago in the bright
flash that consumed Dallas and my family. I remembered the flash from a
distance. I smelled the wind that killed those I loved. When my squad returned,
donning suits to keep the radiation from us, our homes were gone, our families
were ashes. We left
That was when we heard from other
surviving squads. Some no-name General barked orders through our phone.
Arkansas-Oklahoma border was to be our home, guarding some wooded area where
rebels were said to hide. That was months ago. The only action we had seen in
those months were the plague infested towns and the bonfires. It was a gruesome
peace we lived through.
It was while I looked at those flames
that I awoke, and destroyed my peace. The months had worn too hard on me. I
knew that I had to leave. I looked away from those bonfires and discovered that
July somehow melted into November while we watched the barrier of the rebellion
held territory. We stood across a field of brown crispy grass, watching the
woods, the sylvan wall of the rebel zone, whose leaves were still fresh and
green, even on the doorstep to winter.
There were rumors from local farmers
and their families about those who lived in the woods, the rebels, those truly
free, the ones I truly envied; their woods were never sparse, never sickly.
Other rumors said that the rebels had no plagues. There was something about
those woods, one way or another. Some of us in the squad joked around the
fireside about giving up the military green and running the field. The woods
always looked inviting, but we were too frightened to make that run.
In my heart, I made that run many
times, but one man’s death and a little girl’s tears made us know
what courage was and what we had to do. While watching the dusk filled shadows
for freedom-fighters (the ones we called dissidents), the pop of my M16-A2
service rifle brought me out of the daydreams of freedom. I remembered that
something moved. I looked through the newly formed fog and early morning light
to find the source; and in the long shadows, I found my salvation.
She had curls. I saw my daughter in
that face. I broke down and hugged her. My mind saw nothing but one of those I
left behind, buried in ash. I cried and she cried. In the whole time
we’ve been on the march, we kept telling ourselves that there would be
time later to grieve. For me, that time had come.
When I stopped crying long enough, I
gave her a serious look over in the early morning light. Her face was covered
in mud and her dress, formerly pastel blue, was a ruddy brown, torn and frayed.
Her eyes were ice blue, not ruddy brown like mine. She wasn’t my
daughter, my angel, but she was angelic.
“Please, don’t hurt
me.”
“Why would I hurt you?”
“You shot my daddy.”
I looked to find him, a farmer with
gnarled knuckles from raising crops, not a rebel with hands built for war; he
was barely alive. He was choking on his own chunky blood; I knew he
wasn’t long for this world. A geyser of crimson issued from his chest and
he forced his way to me.
“Don’t hurt her,” he
said as he grabbed my leg.
I bent down and looked him in his eye.
“I promise; no one will ever hurt
her.” He relaxed, slowly drifting into the next world. His eyes rolled
back to look at me.
“Save her. Get her to the
woods,” he said, and then coughed up explosions of blood and phlegm. When
the seizures subsided, he leaned back and rested. The light in his eyes slowly
dwindled as the blood pooled black on the rocks beneath him. The girl bent down
and held his hand. He smiled at her and took his other hand and caressed her
cheek, leaving a bloody hand print behind. She smiled back and stayed there,
holding his hand while his life left him.
I noticed the little red bumps at the
base of her neck, early signs of plague. She didn’t have much time to
live herself. My freedom, my life, I was willing to waste, but when I looked
down at the gently weeping angel in the tattered blue dress, I knew it
wasn’t me, but her, I had to get to the woods, to that safety and to the
possibility that there was a miracle walking there. Her freedom was mine, she
was my savior.
I slung my rifle and lifted her up from
the corpse of her father. I looked around and saw the others looking at me and
the girl. I looked down at her and her ice blue eyes. Tears welled up in those
eyes of hers.
“Please. Help me”
My heart saw only my little angel back
home. I wiped the tears and dirt away from her face with my shirt sleeve. She
was beautiful under that. She smiled at me; I smiled back.
I watched the other men of my squad as
they gathered around to see what made the noise that roused them from their
slumber. I picked her up and turned, staring each man in the face, daring them
to keep quiet. My sergeant looked at the treasure I held, and then looked away
to the woods. When he looked back at me, he nodded his head in silent
agreement. I nodded back, and then took my leave.
We made our way across the field. The
woods were not as far as I once thought. We reached it in five minutes of
silent walking, silent save the crunching of the brown grass and the distant
voices of men calling me back to the ranks.
At the edge of the wood, I placed her
down and turned my self to see where my old friends stood. They were still
across the field, waiting in the shadows of a new day, wondering what was going
to become of me. Fear cut me through the middle, but I had to leave that life
behind and find a new way through this new dark world.
I lifted my hand and waved at those who
watched from afar. The sergeant slowly lifted his in return; and then, one by
one, the others did the same. They waved to me, the one who finally crossed the
field and entered the wood. I did what they were still too afraid of; I gave up
my military green for a pair of ice blue eyes in a blue dress.