Title: Geography of Man (1/1)
Summary: Reflections about the power of words.
Characters: Zack.
Rating: PG13.
Disclaimer: Cameron and Eglee.
Date: May 6-7,12, 14, 2001.
He had stolen a car somewhere, details of time and
place lost to time. He remembers that it was blue,
rust edging along the doors and the trunk, creeping
decay. And he can't remember where he was, who he was
that day, but he knows that there was a cigarette burn
on the driver's seat--a small hole, charred around the
edges. His thigh had hidden it from sight, but he'd
felt it beneath him, hot through the material of his
jeans. There had been a school-bag on the passenger's
seat. Untouched for hours as he drove--running,
running, wild flight and fear is a constant and the
specifics are no longer of any note--he'd pulled into
a shadow coated parking lot to consider his options in
stillness. He can't remember why, but he knows he
opened the bag.
'Maria--Love you. Have a wonderful day!--Mom,' he'd
read the note tucked in lunchbag, crumpled it up and
let it fall into the opened ashtray. Riffled through
the bag as he peeled away at the wrapper carefully
folded around neatly quartered sandwiches. He can't
remember what kind, and it is suddenly important to
recall that detail. Peanut butter, he finally
decides--peanut butter and raspberry jam on white
bread. Mouth sticky with peanut butter, he'd leaned
back in the seat, flipping through the books he had
pulled free from the school-bag (blue, he remembers
that it was blue with white lettering. A zipped
pocket in the front, and more pockets within that and
there had been tampons, keys, spare change and a
bottle of apple flavoured lip gloss).
Poetry. His hand had landed on a poetry book, and he
can remember flipping through it, inhuman eyes easily
finding dark marks and giving them meanings even in
the absence of light. He had known an artist once, a
poet whose work has been burned into his brain: Duty.
Discipline. Mission. War is art, and he had
smothered a sharp bark of laughter against his palm
because if war is art, he's an artist.
They tried to make him think in straight lines and
sharp angles, a neat and compartmentalized soldier's
mind. Thoughts curve and twist, loop and swirl, wind
through his head. Small town nowhere, and he had
rented a room and some breathing space. There was a
white mug with a gold rim, red letters painted onto
the smooth surface: Class of '09. Memento of a happy
day, a marker in someone's life, and they hadn't
soiled clean whiteness with coffee or tea stains.
There had been pens and pencils rattling around inside
of it--red and black and blue ink, unsharpened pencils
that gleamed with bright colours, yellow pencils
ground down to stubs. He had sat at a kitchen table,
sunlight warm against the table and his hands atop it.
Paper before him, and he had tapped at emptiness with
an uncapped black pen. Sunlight crept across the
table's wooden surface and he had risen. He stood at
the sink, lighter held to the bottom of a blank sheet.
A layer of grey ash at the bottom of the
stainless-steel kitchen sink, and he had washed it
away with a hard spray of cold water.
There had been a girl, once. She had told him that
he might be flesh and blood, muscle and bone, but he
stopped where most peoples' spirits began. Empty, she
had called him, empty of anything real and soft and
human. He had been young, then, and his curving,
twisting, looping thoughts had painted a picture--the
top of his head cut open, swung open so that careful
amounts of duty, discipline, mission could be poured
into empty cracks. He thinks that she was wrong--he's
more full of emotion and thoughts than his body can
handle. All of his thoughts, all of his feelings come
out sounding the same--sharp and hard and angry, and
he remembers that old thought, Lydecker pouring
himself into his cracked head.
He's bleeding, a hot red rush of blood against his
hands--they're strong, his hands, capable, and they
can't hold his blood inside his body no matter how
hard he presses against his flesh. A wet squelch of
torn flesh and meat beneath his pressing hands. His
shirt is wet with blood and it sticks to his wound.
Blood will dry dark and stiff against the material and
thoughts are fuzzy in his head and he wishes for a
moment that he hadn't worn white today.
He's on a street, in the dark, and there are people
around him. They walk around him, step around him as
he weaves, keep their eyes straight ahead not turning
their heads to look at him even when he collides with
them, bumping shoulder to shoulder. There are
street-lights, yellow pools of light against the
pavement. He skirts around the light, hunched over
and shambling through the darkness (he remembers a
spotlight flaring to life behind him, seeking,
seeking, the sound of bullets). The next light has
been broken, and he's cold, cold, cold, cold and he
hurts.
Soldiers die. All the time. Uselessly. Violently.
Take any moment, and there is a soldier somewhere in
the world--some man or woman or child and they're
dying and the vast majority of the world doesn't know
and doesn't care and wouldn't care even if they knew
that guts and brains and blood are spilling out of
warm bodies towards the outside. He's dying right
now, right here. He could crumple right now, let the
weight of his body carry him towards the ground. His
legs would fold beneath his body, one arm flung out,
the other still curled around his wound. He would
sigh, breath rattling in his throat and then he would
go still. He could do that.
Soldiers aren't supposed to wish. Soldiers are meant
to be solid, sensible men and women who believe in
carefully plotted plans, training, skill and timing.
Sometimes, he wishes. He wishes that he had been born
a poet, that words came to his lips easily and that
they belonged to him and were not simply the echoes of
a man he hated. The others used to recognize caring
in his orders. Your position has been compromised (I
don't want you to get caught). Family isn't an option
(I don't want to see you get your heart broken). I
gave you a direct order! (I love you). Exposure to
the outside world has made his love sound hard and
uncaring, something to wince away from, and he doesn't
know how to regain what he lost to easy words and open
emotion.
He thinks that love is used too freely, said easily
and quickly, is as common as items printed on a
grocery list. There was a woman, once, and she had
smiled and wound her arms about his neck. She had
brushed her lips against his and told him that she
loved him. She hadn't known him at all. Breathing a
sudden agony, his steps dragging across pavement, he
thinks that he's never had those words directed
towards him by those he has most wanted to love him.
He wonders if they love him, if he is more to any of
them than a shared history and common demons.
Thoughts twist, whirlwind fast, shatter apart. His
head is light, feet heavy. The world blurs against
his eyes and he sees darkness. His eyes are closed,
and he doesn't remember the fall of his eyelids. They
peel open and he finds himself on his knees. A hand
fall forward, open palmed against the street, sharp
pebbles digging into his flesh. They are strong, his
hands, capable, and his left one is twitching and
trembling against the street and he can't make it rise
to join its fellow in catching rushing blood.
He wishes. . . he wishes more than he has any right
to. He wishes that they had a normal life. He wishes
that he had been able to protect Jack and Eva, Brin
and Ben and Tinga. He wishes for safety. He wishes
that he were a poet, that he had known how to shape
emotion into words, how to let his family know that he
loves them with every bit of strength he possesses.
He wishes that he had said "I love you," where the
words could be heard by those who most needed them.
He can feel himself falling, his body impacting with
the ground. His hand trembles against blood and torn
flesh, stills. Breath catches in his throat, trickles
past his open lips.
~end~