Editor’s note: This was sent to me via email by a reader who wishes to remain anonymous, in response to Sunday’s post, Back in One Piece. He said to me by way of introduction, “It started out as therapy writing. Putting it into a dream… there are others of us out here like your friend… it’s been twenty years, I still dream about this and other things. There isn’t a recovery really but, an acceptance of responsibility, then coping… maybe one day forgiveness…” And in a second email, “I forgot to add, we buried those bodies…the bone broke when we moved him…a dramatized version of a real event.” — amanda
“Dude!! Dude!! C’mon.” Tim looked around.
“What?? Who’s that?”
“Tim, let’s go dude… get down from there, time to find some trophies!” Tim took in his surroundings. Yeah, the cease fire, the prisoners, we had won but, we were just fighting??? “You alright man?” Cosmo asked. Tim looked around confused, the sun beating down on the back of his neck. He slowly got down from the turret.
“Cosmo, where are we?” Cosmo turned and gave Tim a look that said, “You’re joking, right?”
“Did you fall asleep dude?”
Tim looked around again,“No, no man. I must have been thinking about something else.”
“Over here Sgt. K, I found something!” One of the men shouted. Tim began to walk toward the bombed-out tank. The gun turret lay 30 yards away upside down; something inside the tank was still on fire. Tim walked around the edge of the ripped apart tank… bodies. The men of his squad stood around two bodies. Arms and legs drawn up, one was on his back the other looked as if he was crawling away. They were human as far as Tim could tell, but even that was a guess. Blackened, mouths open, lips pulled back as if in a final scream, the clothes completely burnt away. The one on his back was the worst. It looked as if the flesh had burnt away from his stomach leaving the exposed intestines cooked into place. Tim thought how much he looked like a bug in one of those glass cases; all he needed was a needle through the middle with a little flag that said ‘Homo Sapiens’.