Page 6 of The Darkness Within
I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.
I am an American Soldier.
I was a member of a team that left me behind. I placed the mission first, at risk to my own life and that of my team. For twenty-two days, I suffered and never accepted defeat. I never quit, and I never left my fallen comrade, even when his body lay next to me rotting. I was a guardian of freedom, and the American way of life, and now I have nothing to show for my sacrifice. No life. No freedom, not from the memories that haunt me. Unfit for active duty, I’m being medically retired, sent out to pasture.
I gave, and I gave, and I gave, and the Army gave me nothing in return. They no longer have any use for me.
“Time for your meds, Sergeant,” the nurse says, pushing past the guard.
Of course it is. It’s always time for meds. I take meds for everything. To stabilize my mood and fight depression, to control my blood pressure and anxiety, and vitamin supplements because I’m deficient in almost everything. That’s what having no appetite does to you. Then there’s the meds to control my acid reflux, hypertension, and the migraines. Added to that pharmaceutical cocktail are sleeping pills and mild sedatives.
She hands me a small paper cup of meds, and another one filled with water. I down them in one gulp, fighting my gag reflex as they stick in the back of my throat.
“Would you like to go sit outside for a while? The weather is beautiful.”
This is something they avoided at the hospital in Germany. Human contact with me. Do I want to go sit outside in the fresh air? Of course I do. Nothing feels better after being shoved underground for nearly a month than being above it, outside in the fresh air, unconfined. Free. But there are too many stimulants, too many variables. Anything could trigger me and I’ll spend the rest of the day knocked out. I’ve already lost too many days of my life as a prisoner, I don’t want to lose any more. I hate being afraid of everything, afraid to live my life.
When I was being held against my will, I swore to myself, if I could just get free, I would live my life to the fullest. I would never waste another day. Yet all I’ve done since I made that vow is waste every single day God has granted me. Would Gutierrez waste his life if he were still alive? Would he hide inside of a hospital room isolating himself from the world? Maybe he would. I’ll never know what he would choose. I just do the best I can.
A familiar and unwelcome weight settles over my chest, and I have to breathe deeper to get a full breath. It’s the depression, the anxiety. A constant companion. Fuck. It wasn’t the Army’s fault I got left behind. It wasn’t my team’s fault they made it out without me. It’s easy to blame everyone else, but the reality is that it was just fate. It was just the hand I was dealt. Mostly, I’m angry at what I’ve lost. I’m angry that I allowed myself to become so disillusioned, believing I was fighting for something that now means nothing to me.
When Gutierrez was bleeding out a slow death, I bargained to God, to Satan, to anyone who would listen to just spare him, to just let him see the light of day one more time. I swore that I would do anything, give anything, for that freedom, to give him that opportunity. That’s when I realized the ideals I believed in when I signed my name on my first contract had changed drastically over the years. I was now fighting for the man beside me, for his life and his freedom.
Keeping Gutierrez alive is my mission, and I will always place it first.
I will never accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade.
I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy Gutierrez’s enemies in close combat.
I am a guardian of his freedom and his life.
I am an American Soldier.
No matter who it might be—Gutierrez, Martinez, Simpson, Whittemore—I would stand ready to defend every one of them in the same way. Theirs are the lives I’m fighting for. It’s their faces flashing through my mind every time I swallow the muzzle of a gun. I’m just fighting to survive, to get us both out of here. Everything else—freedom, the right to vote, the right to bear arms, all of the amendments of our constitution that we defend—that’s someone else’s fight, not mine.
If I’m being honest with myself, the Army doesn’t owe me anything beyond what they’ve given me; a healthy settlement, medical retirement, a promotion, and a handful of medals.
Everything else, like what I’m supposed to do from here on out, that’s my problem, not theirs. If I wasn’t so drugged all the time, maybe I could give my future some consideration, but the fog clouding in my mind is growing heavier, so are my eyelids, and for now, it’s just easier to close them and take a break from reality.
I must have slept through the night because when I open my eyes, bright light filters through my window. The nurse pushes past the guard, balancing my breakfast tray in her hands, along with a cup of meds. The breakfast of champions.
“Good morning, Sergeant. Is there anything else I can get you?” she asks as she arranges the meal on my tray table.
“I’m good,” I croak, reaching for the cup of pills first. I’ve become so dependent on them I can’t function without them, much less eat a meal or take a shower.
“You’re scheduled for an x-ray on your leg today and physical therapy. But first, you eat.”
Sounds wonderful.
I may be scheduled for an x-ray and therapy, but the only thing I’m realistically going to do today is sit in this goddamn bed and count the bricks in the wall across the breezeway through my window. My appetite is nonexistent, a side effect of stress, and also a couple of the medications I take, but I nibble at my toast. I’ve learned from experience that the nausea I feel from taking meds on an empty stomach is worse than forcing myself to eat. As I chew, I study the guard’s back, my eyes tracing the digital camo pattern of his jacket. He shifts his weight, and my gaze drops to the gun holstered at his hip. The bread becomes sawdust in my mouth, and I spit it out onto my tray, fighting a wave of nausea as bitter bile tries to climb up the back of my throat.
Sometimes, when something triggers my memories, I lose touch with reality completely, not able to see or hear or feel anything in the present. Sometimes, the past and the present collide, as if I’m viewing my current surroundings through a sheet of vellum colored with the past, aware that I have a foot in both worlds at once. And sometimes, like right now, the memories are just that, bad memories, a nightmare remembered while I’m fully in the present. I wish they were all like this, but unfortunately, my head isn’t able to pick and choose the way it processes trauma.
His gun looks like it tastes cold. A taste I’ll never forget.