Lest We Forget - Monsters

11/11/2010 07:21:00 pm BenefitScroungingScum 5 Comments

Monsters  By Blood In The Sand

My camera hangs next to me, I can't bring myself to take a picture, so I stare and swallow hard, my fingers gripping the rifle slung from my shoulder as I stare some more. Other soldiers walk up to where I stand and no one speaks.

A slain monster lies in the sun. Eyes and teeth are scattered among festering wounds. The beast has seven legs and five faces. There is no giggling now, or bravado. There is only despair.

I cannot walk away, my boots wont move. I taste blood as I bite through my cheek and cigarettes are lit. Still no one speaks, our fear screams in silence and I want to run.

I pick out features of humanity. Fingers, ribs and toes. The bodies now as one, lumps of meat clinging to a spine. I walk away as the sky darkens and a naked soldier lies face down next to a road, his boots still laced.

My breathing is ragged as I look at him. I then glance back at the monster and I struggle to get air. Everywhere I look there are dead children. I close my eyes and spit out blood.

As we leave I cannot form words. I think of home and see my street littered with fallen soldiers. I look at a photo of my son, his eyes are shut and I imagine him dead and a sob escapes my lips.

Embarrassed I crawl into my hole. I watch the shells flash far away and listen to the dull thumps. I sit down and rock back and forth and I speak out loud... 'I don't want to die'

5 comments:

Fire Byrd said...

These words are so painful, they make my heart ache. As do most of Blood in the Sand's other posts.
I have the luxury of picking and choosing when I dip into them though, he doesn't have that choice. And for that I feel both shame and sadness. That we send beautiful young men to war and they come back as they do. Sometimes I think the lucky ones are the dead ones. Cause some of these guys with PTSD are surely living in hell.

e said...

A provocative post; it isn't all parades and shiny medals, something all of us need to remember more often. This is a stark reminder of the truth.

Dray said...

Blood in the Sand.

Thank you.

Joanna Cake said...

Beautiful writing that belies the underlying horror of the words.

I dipped back into Bendy for the first time in a few weeks and find you, a stark reminder of the truth behind the poppies x

Anonymous said...

the fact is it's war, you will see on TV a gun shot man hold his arm he is shot he says I'm all right do not worry he fights on, John Wayne is shot he gets up goes forward and fights on.

My father was falling down a bank as he fell he was shot in the head, the bullet went in through the front of his head, traveled around the inside of his skull and came out the back.

He said as he was shot he was falling, so the bullet was at an angle otherwise the bullet would have hit him between the eyes.

He was then later on that year shot in the shoulder by a bullet fragment, he said it picked him up and sent him flying through the air, once he woke up he was in hospital his shoulder always player up.

He was injured three times, his step brother was killed two hours after the war ended in 1945 when an America aircraft dropped it's bombs into a woods, the place was full of troops waiting to be picked up, he was killed out right, he had gone through the whole war without any damage.

But we see that politicians never learn and they are great at telling people they died for something great, they will never be forgotten bull shit.

Do not forget now Poppies are mostly made in China they are not made anymore by disabled soldiers.