Going Home

         All sound is muffled and quieted as if underwater. The dull thud of falling shells is almost soothing. Planes roar overhead, bombs plummet. Two men cut across an open field. The first limps tragically, slowing down the run. His comrade holds him up and drags him along; both are covered head-to-toe in mud. They run through blindly, but with strange knowing, as if guided by an invisible hand. Suddenly, the limping man falls. His comrade is instantly at his side, pulling him to his feet. “You go, I’ll come on after,” yells the fallen man, his voice barely audible between the pounding shells. The men look at each other, gazes locked. An inexpressible emotion surges in the current created between them. Then the other comrade begins to speak. The moment he opens his mouth, all motion slows and time seems to stop. The voice is clear and direct, as if spoken to him in his mind—the words engrave themselves upon the fallen man’s heart. “Up, Albert. If once you lie down, you’ll never get any further.” The spell breaks. His comrade grabs his arm and they run together through the mess of shells and earth fragments. Pain sears their legs and burns their lungs, but to survive for one another, they run, run, run…

         Albert opened his eyes. His breathing was quick and shallow and sweat trailed down his forehead, settling for a moment in the eyebrows before dripping into tired eyes. He rubbed them with his clammy hands and then reopened them widely to wake himself. Slowly laying back down into the pillow, he let his mind linger on the dream; it was still all too vivid and clear. He had dreamed the same one before. In fact, every night for him had been filled with nightmares of war. This was one of the more pleasant ones. Sitting in his sweat-soiled sheets, he remembered back to those nights where he would wake screaming, having seen a sea of deathly, pale-faced men chase him to the edge of an endless abyss. Still other nights, he awoke to searing pain shooting through his leg, or at least, the stump of it. The dreams of losing his leg would keep him in bed for the entire day. On those mornings, he shuddered to even think of getting up and strapping on the artificial limb. He would forget for that day how he had been able to continue living back home while his comrades were still in the war. After his nightmares, he would feel a deep hatred for himself. It was a hatred that loathed every breath and every luxury he had, while his friends could be strewn dead on some foreign warfront. The guilt ate at him every day. He had been sent home because he lost his leg to an exploding shell, and though he was given the “hero’s welcome,” he realized that there was no place for him when he returned home. Even now, as he lay on the soft, faded ivory sheets of the bed, he felt like a stranger borrowing another man’s room.
         With darkness clouding his mind, Albert dragged himself to the edge of the bed. Reaching down to the bottom drawer of the gray, worn-out dresser, he pulled out a heavy plastic device that resembled half a leg, from knee to foot. Brown straps hung from the knee and a thin cushion layered the groove where his stump would rest. With only his undergarments on, he buckled the straps around his waist and tightened them so that the artificial leg fit snugly. He involuntarily winced as he did so because of the pain, but it gradually dulled to an aching throb. He looked to the edge of the bed to see the freshly ironed shirt and pants his mother had left for him. The soft fabric felt strange and awkward to him. Limping to the bathroom, he washed his face in cold water and shaved himself. After all this was done and he had dried his face, he looked at his reflection in the mirror. He stared long and hard at the clean, shaven stranger before him. Suddenly, the rugged, mud-covered faces of his comrades flashed before his eyes. He swallowed down the urge to vomit. Dizzy and feeling sick to his stomach, he leaned back against the wall, hold his head in his hands. ‘I don’t deserve to live.’ The line repeated itself again and again in his mind. ‘Here, I have everything, every comfort. But what about my friends? What do they have? Nothing! They have nothing, nothing, nothing! Absolutely nothing! Shit to eat, shit to sleep in, shit to shoot at. Nothing but shit!’ His heart ached. It ached and it hurt and he could not stop it. He felt alone. Sure, he had returned to family and a home here in America, but in reality, he had left home and family when he left the front. Truly, he was the one who returned to nothing. Here, he became a charity case. Though people had the word “hero” ready on their lips, he could see pity and scorn in their eyes. He burned against them. He hated them. He foolishly thought of how he had enlisted years ago, inspired by their pride in him. Now, he returned only to be suffocated by their sheer naivety. It made him what he was now, a limbless monster. Children mocked his gimp and common folk in the street would not meet his eye. Even proud pro-war civilians did not speak much around him. A handicapped cripple was not exactly the glorious war-hero they had in mind, he supposed.
         Recomposing himself, Albert limped out of the bathroom and made his way to his room. Someone had been inside. The bed was made and the curtains were pulled back, allowing the morning sun to stream in. He dropped himself into the chair near the window and looked out into the gray street. His tired eyes wandered towards the gray buildings, watching the gray people with their exhausted faces. Their faces reminded him of his comrades. Without even wanting to, his mind was back at the front again. He was in a trench, up to his knees in mud and filth. The pounding of shells and the stench of the mud hole overwhelmed him. His stomach ached with hunger. Everything hurt. Everything was wrong. Everything was hopeless. At that moment, his two comrades Kat and Paul caught his eye. He could hear them talking to one another and shouting, cooing encouragements to the other men. They were joking and laughing. He stared at them incredulously. How could they do such a thing in a situation like this? Awe-stuck, he never kept them out of sight. In the three days that they were being bombed, Albert never turned his eyes away from his two friends. In that moment, they represented all of life to him. Without even knowing it, he clung to these soldiers who three months before, he hadn’t even known. The current of respect and brotherhood between them was unspoken, but one of the most powerful things Albert had ever experienced.
         As he sat by the window remembering, he was seized with loneliness and despair. “I don’t belong here!” he cried out suddenly. “I need… I need to be there, at the front. With them.” His voice was like that of a young child who had lost his way and found himself in an utterly forlorn place. Albert didn’t know how much more he could take. He didn’t know how many more nights he could bear falling asleep to the sounds of shells and waking to the screams of soldiers. He was afraid to close his eyes, for it meant seeing the faces of dead comrades. And yet, a part of him wanted to see them because they were the only images familiar to him.
         He slumped forward in the chair and propped his head up with pale hands, elbows digging into his knees. His palms rested over his eyes and before long, tears squeezed out of them and great gasps shook his body. “I don’t belong here.” He mumbled the phrase over and over again until he became louder and louder. Finally he was shouting, frantic and out of breath. Footsteps raced up the stairs and soon, his mother was cautiously standing at his door. “Albert, what’s wrong? What is it?” His mother’s voice was alert and quiet, but mostly afraid. “I don’t belong, I don’t belong, I DON’T BELONG!” He grabbed the lamp on the dresser and threw it at the doorway. His mother hid behind the wall and shrieked, “Albert, what are you doing?! What is it? What is it that you want?!”
         Suddenly, Albert became very still. His mother peered into the room. He had fallen into the chair with a dejected gaze on his tear-streaked face. His shirt was drenched with sweat and there was a rip in the sleeve from when he threw the lamp. Slowly, he turned empty eyes to his mother and whispered in a small, lost voice, “I want to go home.”
         His mother rushed into the room and took his face into her hands. “Oh, but Albert you are home! Don’t you remember?” She pointed around the room. “Your bed, your desk, your chair, don’t you remember? These are all your things? Oh don’t you remember? And me, your own mother?”
         But Albert did not hear her words. As she pleaded with him, his gaze began to harden. Suddenly, it was filled with realization. Firm resolve found itself in his eyes. His expression lightened and a great smile filled his face. He began to laugh. He laughed and laughed and then, once again, abruptly stopped, eyes glistening with anticipation. “Home! That’s where I’ve got to go! I almost had forgotten. I’m going home now! Home, home, home!” The mother searched the face of her son for some sort of clue explaining his actions and words. But she realized that the Albert she was looking for was no longer. Faltering to her feet, she backed uneasily out of the room, ran down the stairs and out of the house.  Albert pulled himself up, took a deep breath, and suddenly picked up a busy, business-like pace in his actions. He limped quickly to the closet and took out his soldier’s pack and uniform. After dressing himself in his military green, he limped downstairs as fast as he could and packed every edible item from the kitchen into his soldier’s pack. When the pack began to overflow, he jammed food into paper bags. As he worked, he mumbled strange phrases such as “Oh, Kat would get a kick out of these” or “Need to bring something back to them!” When all the cabinets had been emptied, he dragged the bags up to his room. Sweat streamed down his face and he was panting. Still, his eyes kept a crazed, frantic look. It was desperate, broken, lonely, and resolute.
         He locked the room door, sat in the middle of the room and organized the bags of food into a circle around himself. Finally, when all was set, he reached into the bottom drawer of the dresser and pulled out a small revolver. “I’ll definitely need this at the front!” he said in the gleeful voice. With that, he snuggled himself back between the bags, sat very still, and waited.
         He sat for hours, clutching the revolver tightly in his hands and staring wildly at the bedroom door. The sun began to set, casting a red shadow to everything in his room through the lonely window. Suddenly, Albert began to laugh. What started as a low growl in the back of his throat became a roaring howl. He snorted and chuckled louder than he ever had before. It was a hellish laugh that rang from the bitterest part of his soul.
         “Remember?” he exclaimed though fits of laughter, “remember the chairs, Paul? The plush red chairs that we pillaged that one day? We sat and smoked cigars like kings, we did!” He continued laughing. “Don’t worry Paul, I’m coming! I’m on my way. I’m coming home soon!” He began screaming and laughing hysterically, shouting military songs on the top of this lungs and crying out incoherent phrases and names of men long lost in his memory. Suddenly he jerked to a stop. He sat as still as a stone weathered by too much rain and wind. Slowly, the lost, fearful look crept onto his face. The darkness consumed him again. He was falling, deep, deep into the endless abyss, and he could not be brought back. He feverishly gripped the gun in his hands. “Because I don’t belong here,” he whispered. He brought the revolver to his head and pulled the trigger.