03.19.08

Auggie had left the main house so that he wouldn't have to cry in front of his mother. But now that he was sitting here, in his apartment all alone, he had no tears. He wasn't sad. He was angry, and ashamed, and repulsed at himself.

He had consciously avoided thinking about the explosion, and the death of his friends, for months. At first, there had been so many other things to put his mind on. Physically recuperating, and then learning the basics of functioning without his sight, had been effective distractions for the most part. And most recently, he'd been laser focusing on getting his computer skills up to snuff so that he could get back to work. But in the quiet moments between interacting with people and attempting to master various tasks, the noise in his head had been getting louder.

For weeks, he'd been sleeping only a couple of hours a night, awoken by nightmares that had him thrashing in his bedsheets. He knew if someone were to walk in on him in the midst of one of these nightmares, they'd assume he was dreaming about the explosion. He never was. All, but all, of his nightmares involved just two participants: Auggie...and Nasir.

Usually Auggie was blind in the dream. Occasionally he had a birds-eye perspective on the scene, where he could see the whole thing take place from outside of his body. But no matter how much he could or couldn't see, he could never overtake and destroy the man who'd destroyed him.

In a common iteration, Auggie catches him from behind, and just as his forearm begins applying the crushing force needed to permanently cut off Nasir's air supply, Auggie's arms collapse onto his own chest, and Nasir is gone. In the worst versions, Nasir suddenly appears behind Auggie, using his forearm to strangle Auggie.

Another equally upsetting variant has Auggie, blind, pinning Nasir to the ground underneath him. He pulls the street bowie off his belt, hearing the metallic shink as the blade leaves the sheath. He raises the knife high and brings it down in a vicious arc...only to run the blade into the ground beneath him. He feels around frantically to locate Nasir, and then feels the thump in his back, the fiery pain, the liquid warmth of his own blood pouring out of what he knows is a fatal wound.

Nasir al-Shirazi. The man was a phantasm, a ghost. He wasn't even a person anymore. He was the psychological manifestation of Auggie's fear, and grief, and loss.

And Auggie was a latter-day Sisyphus, forced each night to roll the massive boulder of his guilt and anxiety and fear up the hill of his subconscious. Every night, he ended up at the bottom of that hill, crushed by the weight of everything he was holding onto, holding off, holding in.

He missed his guys. He missed his work. He missed being useful, strong, competent. He missed a version of himself that wasn't so haunted. So tortured.

But even sitting here thinking these thoughts made him disgusted with himself. No matter how FUBAR his life was at the moment, it was a life. He was alive. It was Auggie who'd been the lone survivor.

And he knew why.

Everything up to the moment Billy was killed - that wasn't his fault. Billy's blood wasn't on his hands. Thank God. But it wasn't much of a relief. Because Auggie knew that he'd had a choice the moment Billy was shot. He could've (should've-should've-should've) aborted the mission that second and driven like hell to get out of that awful place. But he hadn't. He'd decided to stay and complete the mission. Had that been the brave decision the Army had been hoping he'd make? Or just some cowboy bullshit?

Then, he'd allowed his men to get out of the vehicle, another crucial decision. Another terrible mistake.

Chris had been taken down almost immediately, wounded too badly to stand, let alone help his fellow soldiers. And Auggie had left Nasir with him. He'd left him with the traitor. Left Nasir exactly where Nasir had hoped he would, using the American Humvee as cover while Auggie's men got shot to heck by Nasir's co-conspirators. Where Nasir could sit and wait for the perfect moment to toss his bomb-loaded bag underneath the vehicle and run.

Jason, who'd wanted to take point, wanted to take out the Jack of Diamonds? Auggie had commanded him to lay down cover so that Auggie himself could enter the safehouse. He'd been the ranking officer; that was the right call. But he hadn't had to make it; he'd had latitude, especially in a cluster like that. If he'd covered, sent Jason up like he wanted, it'd be him in a dank hole in the ground and Jason safe at home with his family in Florida. Maybe Jason would be blind, maybe he wouldn't be. But he'd be alive.

What would Billy give, what would Chris give, what would Jason give-to be in Auggie's shoes right now? What would Billy's mom give to put Auggie in a casket and take her son home instead?

It wasn't fair. Not even close.

I'm a lucky guy, thought Auggie bitterly.

A/N: Special thanks to b11rthdaycake, one of my most encouraging and faithful reviewers, who tapped into her amazing network of blind friends to answer some of my questions. I've used one of her friends' (fascinating) experiences here in my description of Auggie dreaming.