The mouthfeel of sand and blood isn’t pleasant. Sure, the bloke beside you screaming in agony as his leg is amputated is debatably more unpleasant, but the graininess of sand mixed with the irony taste of blood bothered me more. And surprisingly for only being in the war for just three days, I’m already accustomed to the whole doom and gloom of the war already. I just kind of want it to be over. I want to see my family. I mean, sure, I wasn’t particularly enjoyable as a human, and in all honesty, I was annoying, and I wouldn’t be surprised if my whole family had written me off their will already, but it would be nice to see them all the same.
“JEFFERSON. GET OUT OF THE BED.” Oh god, my commander. Jonathon von Huerr is an outright bastard of a man. Sure, he’s ripped as all hell, but there’s no personality to his being.
“Why? I’m injured!” I retorted.
“YOU STUBBED YOUR TOE ON A ROCK.” He answered back.
I hesitated. “…And your point is…?” Surely, he can’t see through my façade of an injured war hero and see the lazy, vain boy that I am on the inside.
“I CAN SEE THROUGH YOUR FAÇADE OF INJURY, YOU LAZY, VAIN MAN!” Damnit. At least he called me a man, which is the most flattering thing anyone has ever called me. I hesitatingly got out of my bed, and slowly put my ugly green-brown boots on, but in a spiteful way. In rebellion, I spat out the sand in my mouth onto the ground. He didn’t notice. Von Huerr had already turned his back on me by then. All this rebellion, for what? Nothing?
The trenches are hectic, as always. If I had the ability to stop time, it would be now. Getting some peace and quiet, that would be nice. No fusses, no one looking at me in disgust, no one shouting at me because I’m in the wrong place in line, just nothing. Eternal nothing… what a concept.
“JEFFERSON!” Oh great, the recognizable voice of my lieutenant, Mr. Rogers, choruses throughout the trench. Yippee.
“WHERE WERE YOU?” Why do all military men feel the need to shout?
“I was in the medical bay? I’m sure you’ve heard- “
“THAT YOU STUBBED YOUR TOE ON A ROCK? YES.” Everyone around me is now looking directly at me. I can feel their contained laughter. It’s a familiar feeling. Primary school, high school, university, all because of… what? Because I’m funny? Do I look funny? I mean my hair seems to go in every conceivable direction, but many people’s hair does the same thing. “GET BACK TO PATROL, JEFFERSON.” His voice has calmed down, but he was still somehow yelling. He took a few steps forward, before smirking, half-turning to me, and saying, in a quieter tone “Oh, and try to avoid any rocks.” The whole battalion finally cracks and starts laughing hysterically. It wasn’t even that funny. Surely he could’ve thought of something wittier. I can’t think of anything right now, but if I were him, I would have workshopped the punchline before I came to see the man who felt the need to go to the hospital wing when he stubbed his bloody toe on a rock during the freaking war.
Smithers walked up to me and patted me on the back. It slightly burnt due to the cigarette facing the wrong way. It hurt, but I’ve already stubbed my toe, I don’t want to show any signs that my masculinity was in some way impaired. I’m strong. At least I think I am. I’m emotionally strong if that counts. I only cried 341 times on the train, plane and boat down to France’s lines.
“So, oi ‘eard tee whol’ rock story, eh? Tough look, oi suspec’.” Smithers was Irish, and the fact that he was Irish was very evident from his whole being. His hair was redder than cheap lipstick, his skin paler than bleached paper and his accent stronger than the ragged Americana corporal accent of my commander von Huerr. Being Irish, he’s the butt of more jokes than I am. However, he’s used to the constant bullying, as he faced all of it in his life in New England. He’s one of the few of us that doesn’t want to go home. I swear the man’s a masochist in the highest regard.
I shrug his hand off my shoulder. I’m not looking for sympathy right at the moment. “Thanks, Smithie.” I say to be polite, as polite as the rude, loud and bashful American that I am can be. We sit in silence for a bit, before he brings his muddy, gross, hasn’t-been-washed-in-days hand over onto my as-clean-as-it-can-get uniform.
“Cumon, we got the gayme starting soun.” Oh boy, the game. The game is always soccer. Bloody English soldiers. It’s the only thing they’re good for, and it’s barely that good. But Smithers gets excited by the whole sports thing, and because he’s the only one that doesn’t tease me as much as the rest does, so I’m left with either going to the soccer or making new friends. I mean, I could always try and make friends, but often they’re like-
“Oi faggot, how was the rock stubbing competition? Did you win? Or even worse, did you lose?” says some random that I don’t know the name of, as more people that I don’t know around him are laughing their slacks off. He sounded Australian. I can’t see the shackles around his hands, but I’m sure they’re there. It seems like my story has gone through the whole troop at this point. Well, I guess soccer it is.
I enter the stands, and immediately, everyone in a six-foot radius starts staring at me. The game has started, but I can feel their gaze upon me, even if it’s brief. Every single set of eyes that lays upon me feels like a sword piercing straight through my body. To understate it a bit, it’s uncomfortable. I try to shrug it off. It doesn’t work. I try and turn to Smithers, but he’s too engaged in the game. He’s so focused that he’s mumbling under his breath. It’s weird. Even though we’re at war, I can feel a sense of peace and calmness and-
“GET ‘IM!” Smithers suddenly shouts, standing up out of his seat. I also jump out of my seat, just involuntarily. I try and make it look like I somehow jumped out of my pants but voluntarily. I cross my arms and look at the match going on. I hear giggling. Oh god, did someone see me? Oh no oh- don’t be silly Jefferson, it’s probably just a little joke that they made, probably not about me. Probably.
As the game draws to a close, I think that my life is not worth living anymore, and Smithers looks at me with the biggest grin and sweat coming off his forehead. Smithers turns to me, almost inferring that I should say something. “That was nice!” No, it wasn’t. Quickly, add in some comedy. “I mean, as nice as it could get while in the trenches…” That wasn’t funny. I would prefer to be shot straight in the head, arm, belly button and left shoulder by the worst shot in the German army. Or maybe bombed. Just a giant bomb landing straight on my head. End the pain. Just end it, goddamnit.
After not saying anything for a while, Smithers starts to chuckle at my bad almost-not-a-joke, and retorts. “You remahnd me ov me boy.” His boy? As in a child? He has a child? Or had? His use of tense is confusing. “Aye cood tell ‘im the moust amayzing storeh, an’ ‘is respons’ ‘ood al’ays be ‘yeah’.” He continued. “Aye miss ‘im, aye ‘eally do. E’en wit’ de laque ov vocabulary.” He chuckled through the tears. Oh no, I can’t comfort people. This isn’t my specialty. I don’t really have a specialty. I’m specialty-less. Maybe not having a specialty is my specialty? Who cares, my friend is crying. What do I do? Harvest the tears so we can salt the horrid meat that we get so it’s vaguely tasty? …What? No!
“Um, it’s going to be alright, don’t you worry…” I said in a high pitched, singing voice, like the voice when you talk to a child or dog. Am I calling my best mate a child or dog? I don’t think so. Let’s hope he doesn’t know what inference is. I patted him on his head (god, I’m really calling him a dog, aren’t I) and went down to my bunker. It was getting late. I needed my sleep.
Sleep’s a necessity. Sure, I usually can’t sleep because that one German person that I accidently shot had a piercing gaze which will never get out of my head. And sure, knowing me, I probably shot a rock, but he still stared at me as someone else shot him. It was scary. Knowing my luck, however, he was probably staring at the guy next to me. Door knob. Right. Turn the knob. No, turn it left. You idiot. Wait, no it’s right. Push, and…
As I open the door to the bunker, two men are talking. On the left, Don. He’s the one with the chin that goes past his mouth. He sounds like what sentient tobacco would sound like: raspy, grumbly, coughing every half second. On the right, Jimmy. Jimmy’s the youngest of the bunker, possibly the entire battalion, calling himself 18, but he honestly looks eight. His eyes are huge, which is either him being young, or his chronic thyroid problem. His voice seems to have not broken yet, which is either him being young, or being castrated at the age of four. In the shower is Doc, the medic of the bunk. Not a qualified doctor and was shunned from being an actual doctor due to being rather shouty and those shouts tending to cause heart palpitations.
And then there’s me. Simon Jefferson. I don’t have a cool nickname like Doc or Don or Jimmy or Smithie. I barely even have a name. I’m sure that if you gave my parents the option, they wouldn’t have named me. Heck, they wouldn’t have even shown up to my birth if it were possible. Even walking into the bunker, slouching in front of Don and Jimmy’s conversation about girls, steak and classic literature (Don is talking about the Grapes of Wrath and Jimmy’s talking about The Little Engine That Could), they don’t notice me. I’m basically invisible. It’s almost a superpower. I’m 22, and I’m already a failure; I tried to do physics at Harvard without knowing my times tables, then tried to do stand-up comedy without any jokes. So, I signed up for the war, not knowing who we were versing, where we were going or what America had to do with this war that was not about us at all. And now I’m here. God knows I wished that I was anywhere else. But I’m not. And I guess I’ll have to see the war through.
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