Trying.
Every morning was spent the same, staring into the mirror with the toothbrush hanging between his teeth, the thick foam of it dripping into the sink. He ran his thick fingers over the gauze wrapped around his arm and with a tired look, he returned to the scrubbing as if somehow the clean mouth could stay clean, as if it wouldn't spit dirty orders all day that would leave him with the taste of blood on his tongue. But it was what it was. Erwin rinsed his mouth and spat into the sink, letting the tap run a little longer than he needed to, just watching the water swirl down the plughole like his childhood ambitions of being a great leader. He looked at his reflection, made a quiet noise of disgust and left the bathroom, deciding he wasn't shaving again today. Instead of a clean face, he left the communal bathroom with a thick stubble across his jaw and a Kevlar heart in his chest – lightly weighted and stronger than steel.
On the orange battlefield he zoned out. Once, twice, again, again. Orders that could've been sharp and fresh were rehearsed tactics recycled – again, again - but his exhausted mind could manage no more. Four more men lost in a minefield. Four more coffins on his conscience and four more reasons to die in battle. That was the only way to justify it, to find redemption. Not that he was a religious man. He had never been fond of religion, never loved anything he couldn't touch and never had the faith to believe in a higher being that, in his experience, never seemed to deliver. The redemption he sought was much more personal. More tangible. All he wanted now was peace and an end to the fighting that had occupied so much of his mind and existence that it had long drowned the man he had been before it.
When the fighting for the day was done, he sat by the flickering firelight and watched a grown man cry and grieve for the best friend that Erwin had sent to his death. Or as good as, anyway. He wanted to console him briefly but there was nothing to say and nothing to feel good about. What comfort could he offer him? He didn't believe he'd gone to a better place. Not resting in peace but in pieces. So he just sat and watched as one his most skilled soldiers went to bits and didn't say a word and after a couple of minutes of the sobbing, he tuned it out and barely cared. Another troop was sat beside the grieving soldier and was patting his back and throwing Erwin scathing glances. The blond looked back at him calmly and wondered if he might die from an attack from his own. He smiled tightly back, rose and went to rest, vowing that tomorrow would be different like he had done a hundred times before, only to fail and fall into a dizzy repetition. In a more merciful world, perhaps the failures might have been attributed to the difficulty of his task, to the hostile climate or to the landscape that they couldn't navigate. It might have been attributed to the fact that they were badly equipped and morale was running lower than the funding from home as the budget dropped steadily with the public estimations of troops. But in a place like this, people needed to be angry at someone and they needed a scapegoat because the directionless anguish and anger was too much to bear. Erwin endured that silently because it was the least he could do.
The flashbacks were so disruptive now that he could hardly sleep and a couple of hours was all he got before he woke up in a silent cold sweat. After that, it was an hour and a half or two hours or three – he never checked, never cared - of sitting outside the tent, smoking cigarettes with his head hung low and his eyes half closed in a daze. Then the dawn would break and the sun would peak up, orange splitting through purple and slowly a golden glaze would spread over the barren landscape. Despite the corpses and past bloodshed being branded and burned onto the fabric of existence itself, that blazing sun was always full of its bright, empty promises of a better day as it hung in the air, watching like some cruel dictator or God. But Erwin knew better by now; what fool wouldn't? As long as that sun rose, as long as there was a tomorrow, there would be more suffering. More emptiness. More lies. But no matter. He just had to stand up and put one foot in front of the other. He just had to make it to tomorrow.