Telling the stories I'm meant to tell.

Prompt: Write about a tragedy as seen from a young child’s eyes.

As a child you don’t necessarily see or understand the gravity or magnitude of a situation. One minute everything is absolutely fine, the next minute you’re caught in the middle of a war zone. The pop-pop-pop of gunfire ringing out near your home sets off internal alarms. Crying, reaching your short, stubby arms into the air for your mother or father. It’s your way of saying pick me up and keep me safe.

Only what happens next is something you don’t understand. No one is there to pick you up or hear you cry until a soldier bursts through your front door, sweeping each room for enemies.

The rules say he isn’t supposed to do anything to help save you; he goes against those rules and grabs you from your crib.

Waking up beneath the trees prompt.

When you have spent the last year of your life living in a desert you start to take the little things in life for granted. I started to miss the pitter-patter of rain against my bedroom window or laying in a field staring at the clouds and naming the shapes. Each shape would have its own story to it. As a kid I always loved being able to go climb a tree or take a nap under one on a lazy summer afternoon.

There was just always a special, magical feeling I would get after waking up beneath a tree. Rubbing my eyes, stretching my arms way up over my head, stretching down through my torso all the way to my toes pointing them toward the river. I look up at the full, green leaves, with the sun shining down through them.

In the fall if you looked long enough you could swear that the leaves changed colors from red to yellow right in-front of your eyes.

Waking up beneath a tree brings a sense of calm and serenity to my life that was hard to obtain while at war. I could let my guard down and be one with nature. When you’re at war you rarely have downtime and can never let your guard down. You’re responsible for more than just your own safety when you’re over there. You’re protecting everyone back at home from the enemy. You have to have the backs of the guys in your platoon. If you lose a guy that’s on you whether it was your fault or not. The guilt and shame of losing a comrade in combat never goes away.

The only thing that would have made waking up under a tree better is if Charlie were here with me. I took this trip alone to gather my thoughts. I’m sure that Charlie would understand that.

Inner Monologue Prompt

Sitting outside my barrack in Kandahar, Afghanistan while mindlessly cleaning my rifle with a cigarette hanging from the corner of my mouth I kept thinking about him. He was my best kept secret from my platoon. I knew that I could be court marshaled and dishonorably discharged if I made it public knowledge that I’m gay or that my partner is a transsexual man.

Though when it came down to it I didn’t much care if someone found out. My tour was almost over and soon I’d be returning home to him. Maybe I would be a different man than when I’d left. I’ve seen and done things here that no one person should ever see or do. My partner will never be able to truly comprehend that.

Road Trip Prompt.

It has always been one of my favorite things to jump into my car, roll the windows down, turn the music up way too loud and drive in no particular direction with no destination in mind. My destination would be wherever I ended up as the sun set over the horizon. Having nothing in front of me other than the open road gave me the freedom I’d been looking for since being discharged from the Army.

Breakfast prompt.

I watched him sitting at the table working his way through breakfast. The tattoo of a Teddy bear on his neck creeped out from under his shirt every time he brought his fork to his mouth. The Teddy bear has a patch over his left eye and an IV line coming out of his left arm. His right leg is broken causing him to lean on a wooden crutch for support.

Todd based the tattoo off a line from a poem that says not all casualties come home in body bags.

He still sits in his chair at the table with his back facing the wall even though he’s been home for six months. His chair never moves from it’s place. It’s worn visible marks in the paint where it meets the wall. I’m sure if you moved it from it’s place there would be four rings in the wood flooring, one for each leg.

During meals he doesn’t speak a word and sometimes acts like he hasn’t seen food in the last three years.

Hands Prompt.

That’s how I knew it was him holding me. The way his rough, dry, cracked finger tips brush my cheeks. His calloused palms hold me tight. I can tell he is, or was, an artist even in the pitch black darkness of our bedroom. His hands tell the stories of his life from being a gymnast to playing a guitar on the streets for pocket change. He’s experienced pain, suffering, and hardship. These are the hands that held an AK-47 automatic firearm in a war zone. You can’t compare his hands to those of a newborn baby. Newborns are pure, innocent, new beings in the world. They are blank canvasses that will soon tell their own stories. Unlike a grown man their hands are soft, smooth, and unblemished. They haven’t yet experienced pain or suffering. The skin on his hands give me comfort in knowing he is home with me, and safe. He’ll never have to look down the sight of his rifle again. His hands will never have to take another life. I wish, secretly, that my hands could take those memories from him.