Trench Run

I was cold. So cold. I knew that order was wrong.
Pain. Lack of pain. I was dead, I was sure. I had just been hit by a barrage of 15 pound artillery fire and yet I could still see. I couldn’t feel anything except a chill down my spine. Everything in my body tingled with sensations that were so unnatural, yet so comforting. I looked down at my feet.

Or, where they used to be anyways.

Oh, God. I thought of my family. Jackie. She would miss me, crying for days after the agent handed her my folded flag. The kids. They would grow up without a father to help them through the tough things in life. My parents would attend my funeral, and would bury their own son.

As I looked around, I saw my squad leader. What was left of him anyways. His helmet was on backwards, a trademark of the 369th Harlem Hellfighters. I thought back to when the bureau had recruited all the black men in our church and school. Seemed like every man in the country was going overseas.

I felt colder now, and my wounds stopped bleeding. I throbbed numbingly at the head. The sky had darkened, though the battle had just begun, and it was only dawn. The horizon grew darker still, as if time had been hastened. But it had only been a few seconds. My vision faded to grey, and my friends’ shouts had little sound. My head grew heavy, and the horizon grew increasingly blurry.

My hearing faded in and out, and I felt more tired than I had ever been in my life. I just needed to rest a bit. I might even get to see Mrs. Penny from school. She got sick before we left, and I heard from a friend that she had passed as we stormed the beachhead into France.

I missed my family. Many of us thought this war would be our great adventure.

It was anything but.