I have visions of my brothers dying in the streets; I lay
wounded unable to move inches from the line of bullets skipping off the cobbles
stones.
I can’t take my eyes off of the
spark the little pieces of stone that explode into a puff of dust each time a
bullet hits skips looking for flesh to tear. It stings my face making my eyes
water from the dust and sharp splinters of rock. I smell the dust the metallic coppery ozone
scent from the bullets like hot wiring.
My ears ache from the sound of the guns the rockets.
Men run past ignoring me for dead taking
killing rounds from the defenders falling where their lives end. Bullets
continue to rip their bodies as they lay dead in the street. I was lucky I fell out of the line of fire
from the machines guns, others not so lucky.
Blood is everywhere; slowly flowing down from the high point in the
center of the street. There two of my men
lie dead or soon to be dead their bodies jerk and flop like rag dolls every
time a bullet finds flesh. Blood slowly
flows making its way to the side of the street with a curb of stone; three
large streams, innumerable small creeks of red gleaming in the sun sparkling in
a myriad of blinding flashes. All the
running blood comes together at the curb and forms a river just inches from my
eyes. It’s mesmerizing watching the life
flow by me; sometimes damning up behind a piece of rubbish making the blood form a small red pool, then flowing, racing
along into the nearest storm drain.
Just
at the limit of my sight I see my comrade’s blood eddy behind a small piece of
debris inches from the drop into the sewers; making a small whirlpool, a vortex
of swirling blood, it sucks in other pieces of debris from the street into the
storm drain. A drifting piece of torn
brunt drapery slowly floats from above leaving a trail of white smoke as it lands
in the flowing blood taking its place among the dust and splinters of exploded
wood; it makes two full circles and drops through the grate.
Whiffs of smoke from hundreds of small fires
slowly drifts in and out of smashed windows swirling around the support beams
of street level family owned shops then vanishing into the shadows. I see ghosts, movement in the smoke filled
depths of the shop across from where I lay.
The smoke is heavy inside the buildings, trapped by the lack of breeze and
internal fires. Heavy machine gun fire rakes the buildings front filling the
street with chunks of plaster and dust; a spent crushed and twisted bullet
slides across the cobble stones bouncing against the curb shooting straight up
and lands so close to my face my eyes can’t adjust to see it clearly. Again I
smell the metallic coppery smell of death.
A deafening boom then instant crack as a tank shell breaks the sound
barrier, then another ear splitting boom when the tank shell hits above me and
across the street above the shops into the apartments of the people who use to
live here. Huge pieces of cement fall
from the building smashing the corpses of my men in the center of the
street. Furniture rains down, cups,
plates littering the stones. Three men
dart out of the gloom and smoke of the shop across from me; running for their
lives. I pivot my eyes and watch as they
all three are cut down by machine gun fire; twisting tearing clothing hides the
brutal rip of flesh. Their bodies hurled
yards down the length of the building’s face before dropping at the opening to
the alleyway. Smoke whiffs up from the bodies
as tracer ammo catches clothing on fire; it dances in the air twisting in a
tight column and then blows slowly around the alleyway corner.
My eyes catch movement as a body from above
hits the cobble stones with a sickening hollow wet sound. His head is turned towards me as eyes open
and he looks into my eyes being just feet apart. We both lay where we fell; starring into each
other’s eyes as the clamorous sounds of the battle rattles in our ears. He
begins to say something but doesn’t have the time as a machine gun bullet
explodes his head in pink spray; mists of foggy pink drifts down the street
towards the smoking bodies.
I hear and
feel a deep rumbling that I’ve only heard from a distance before. It continues over the next few minutes
getting louder and louder until it’s a roar the street shakes and vibrates with
its movement, little dust devils dances in my face twirling dancing moving left
then right, their height growing as the monster closes in on where I’ve fallen.
Turning my eyes to the limits up in my
eye sockets I can just made out a large form that belongs to the rumbling
monster. The tread of its chains chew
the cobbles stones chipping them grinding them to a fine powder. The T72 Russian tank is making its way down
the street looking for anything to kill.
Smoke turns to diesel exhaust as the tank nears where I lay. I realize that the street is blocked across
from me by large chunks of concrete; they lay between me and the building on
the other side of the street. The most
open area is on my side of the street, where I lay unable to move. The beast stops just feet from my head, the
barrel of the tank has already passed where I lay; I’m choking on diesel fumes
and the fine dust that the tracks are carving into the stones. My eyes are watering; my eye lids are gluing
together with the toxic exhaust fume filled dust. I must have passed out; the explosion from
the main gun of the tank blew my ear drums out.
I woke to T72 tank treads four inches from my face; a blur of steel
passing within inches of my face, the tracks riding the edge the stone curb, edging
along closer and closer to the top of the stone curb cutting a grove deep and
expanding towards my face.
Two months later.
Ggggrrrraaapppphhhhh… Ggggrrraaapppphhhhh…
Ggggrrraaapppphhhhh… God I hate that fucking sound…
What are they doing?
I can’t see but it’s coming from over my head. Oh cutting a fucking onion… Ggggrrrraaapppphhhhh…Ggggrrraaapppphhhhh…
damn sound makes me crazy, how does cutting onion make me so crazy…………
stop….that sound I don’t know what it is but it’s bad; it hits me deep in my
soul. It’s something that I’ve heard
before; sometime, somewhere in the fight for our Country I’ve heard that sound;
god I can’t stand that sound. I’m
hungry, but that sound just makes me want to kill that fucker making dinner;
another scrape and I’ll slit his throat.
I can almost see from my bed as he moves to cut another slice from the
onion.
Who would want to kill the fucking cook? I must be totally crazy to want to kill the
guy that makes the food to fill our stomachs.
Ggggrrraaapppphhhh… Ggggrrraaapppphhhh…Ggggrrraaapppphhhhh… fuck
me………….. I have no idea why that sound
makes me so crazy. I just want it to
stop. God damn fucking
Ggggrrraaapppphhhh; I’ll kill that fucking ass hole…………..fuck him I hate
that……………stop, stop STOP……………. Fuck, fuck, FUCK….. It’s got to stop…………
A face in my face; the nurse gives me another injection to soothe
the demons. It’s decided to move my
hospital bed further from the opening of the kitchen; a favored spot with most
of the wounded.
I’ll sleep now, the world is turning a funny color of grey;
things will be better tomorrow or maybe the day after. For now it’s just sleep and hopes of a
bloodless day.
From the Ramblings
t
