The Restless Soldier

          Sergeant Morris strained to move as he awakened to unfamiliar surroundings.  Not even his eyes would shift, seemingly frozen in their sockets, fixed on a sandy ridge.  Suddenly, he was airborne and soared through the air under the power of an unknown force.  Morris landed upright, paralyzed still, now facing a small division of soldiers in desert colored uniforms. 

          The enemy units seemed frozen as well, Morris observed.  He didn't know how he knew them to be enemies, except that his uniform was an olive drab, forest color, while the other men were in khaki fatigues. 
He wondered how he ended up in the desert, and how extensive his amnesia was.

          The soldier could faintly recall a wife, a son, and a beautiful house near the base, combat action...  memories from a life that he could barely remember.  He struggled against the invisible force again and managed to knock his stiff form to the ground, but was almost instantaneously righted.  A million questions rammed their way through the Sergeant's mind as he pushed his will to the brink of nervous breakdown, wanting only to move or remember more, some useful detail that might help him escape this. 

          A glint of sunlight glanced off the khaki helmet of a frozen enemy soldier and a feeling of deja-vu crept over the Sergeant.  He dug into his mind, recalling an event. An entire enemy division had been there, but not in the desert, and they had been wearing tiger-striped camouflage, not khaki.  Morris had thrown a grenade at the advancing threat as a well-placed artillery round hit nearby, sending shrapnel through the Sergeant's body, then all he saw was white light.

          Morris' face would have become very grim at this moment if he were able to move.  Realization dawned on him as a huge shadow came into his vision, blocking out the blinding sun.  The excited voice of a young, innocent boy mocked gunfire and randomly knocked soldiers down, then began throwing rocks at the soldiers on the ridge, simulating artillery.  The small boy played with his cheap, plastic toys as the sun set, wishing he could be like them one day, a soldier.  Steve Morris had wanted that once, but killing a man changes everything and he was most definitely a changed man. 

          Steve wanted to scream, but toy soldiers cannot cry out, or sleep or attempt to escape, they can only regret whatever sins earned them the irony of such immortality and accept their fate for the rest of eternity.