The Illusionist

By Chaos Catalyst

All that was left of Eugene Roe, when no one was looking, when his fears pinched his veins too tightly, was a man made of scattered wishes, second-hand hopes, and stolen lives.

Roe glanced down at his hands, a cigarette protruding from his mouth, and curled them around invisible needles. When the needles had broken, sending make-believe morphine cascading down his hands, fists had formed and Roe realized that they were shaking. Had they always done that? Roe shivered. Cold bit and nipped playfully at his skin, while dread and anxiety gnawed at his gut.

Roe took a slow drag from his cigarette, exhaling a cloud of nerves. With each new puff came the merciful release of emotion. Emotions were dangerous. They prodded him until he shook with self-loathing. They wriggled in his stomach and clawed at his throat until he sobbed with regret. They stole away all that he had strived to achieve and held it over him, a harsh bully in a blood-stained playground. Desperately, Roe stole another drag; his lips pulling the numbing tar down his torn throat.

Once cleansed, once the tar, a balm of sorts, had been rubbed over his raw emotions, Roe ducked away from the cloud, willing himself to stay apathetic if only in appearance, if only for a few more days, if only for few more smiles. Strikes were sparse, and Roe wasn't one to take.

The medic grinned shakily, immediately wishing he hadn't wasted a perfectly good smile, as another bomb hit. He had forgotten, if only for a second, that he was in Hell, that families depended on him to heal their sons, that he wasn't the worst off fucker on the field.

'Medic! We need a goddamned fuckin' medic!'

A crab emerging from his hovel; Roe skittered frantically, searching for the shouts amidst the sea of grit covered faces and hollering guns. Another shrieking bomb collided with the ground, exploding with agony as he made it to the wounded soldier. The ground shook as he crashed to his knees beside the hysteric, bleeding man. Grabbing the man's hand, Roe smiled and fumbled for an injection of morphine. His last. That was two, now. Two smiles amidst Hell.

'You'll be fine.'

He'd been shot in the chest. He would not be fine. The man would be dead soon, the epicenter of his body hurriedly pushing out life that wriggled eagerly to the snow below where it morphed in to death. Still, Roe smiled that easy, reassuring smile and applied gauze over the man's wound with those healing hands that didn't actually heal; those fucking shaking hands.

As the nameless man died-babbling for his girl back home, for his mother, for his two brothers fighting the damn Krauts-Roe trembled. He trembled as all of those dying wishes and longings interlaced with his hands, scrambled under his skin, and rode his veins until the nameless, faceless, breathless man was gone. It was just Roe and his newest made corpse.

Eugene Roe wasn't a brave man, or an angel, or a healer. Eugene Roe was a demon swaddled in the tightly stretched skin of dead men, stealing souls in an attempt to become tangible, to become real. But, with trembling hands Roe lit another cigarette, desperate for the sweet rush of apathy, the illusions; the smoke and tar kept him in limbo. And Roe, if only for a few gracious seconds, a few indulgent puffs, was happy.