Larmes De Noir (“Black Tears”)

Word Count: 757

The erratic bursts of brilliant light are blinding in the gloom and darkness of the night. I welcome the reprieve that the blackness offers, because it momentarily shields the horror happening around me. I'm a soldier, refined and noble, or so I once thought. I have no idea what kind of man I've now become and the very thought chokes the life from me.

Bullets speed through the air like shooting stars of death. I flatten myself further onto the rock-strewn ground. Can I not stop this madness, I shriek to myself, but no one hears my silent plea. The putrid stench of death that hangs like a shroud makes me gag. I cannot draw a breath through my fear, nor can I see through the dense darkness surrounding me.

What have we done?

I watch, numbed and so alone, as the carnage unfolds like some surreal nightmare I cannot wake from.

For thirteen days, my army has hiked through the mustard sands of the desert to reach the atrocities I now face. The daunting heat of a relentless sun has blistered my skin and I shiver in the cool, night air that washes over me like waves of an icy sea. I'm here to take that which does not belong to me. I am nothing but a lowly soldier, fulfilling orders that I don't understand.

Help me, dear god! How do I appease my soul from this torment?

Mustering courage I thought had deserted me, I look up, watching as faint silhouettes of men run for cover in a land barren of refuge. I am the death that awaits them, and I abhor the very thought of who and what I have become. They are no more righteous than I … are they?

These men fight for what they consider their land, their people, and their freedom. They hold true to what they know is virtuous in their hearts . Who am I to come here and demand they change all that is holy to them? Who granted my army such immense power?

I remember a time not long ago when I, too, possessed these noble attributes, but such things have slipped from my grasp of late. I'm nothing now--except a man intent on staying alive.

“Move, you dogs!”

The raw, biting voice of my commander cuts through my mind like ravenous maggots. I crawl forward on my belly, like some rabid animal obeying an urgent supplication. Bodies of my comrades slither along the ground beside me. I try my best to ignore their palpable fear. Bile burns in my throat. I must comply, for ingrained within me is absolute compliance. I'm a soldier of war.

“Help me--”

The whispered plea reaches my ears and for a moment, I believe I am dreaming, or perhaps I'm praying for it to be so.

The dead do not talk … do they?

Raising my head and hoping the sound is deceiving, I gasp at what lies before me. Broken men litter the ground, their bodies strewn aside like forgotten rag dolls. I gasp in horror at what we've done … at what I've done.

I stand to my feet, shocked. I don't realize the bullets have stopped, or that the silence is broken by faint, pitiful cries and moans echoing in the distance. I hear only one voice.

“Help me--”

His plea rips through my soul and I reach out to hold the fallen man. He cannot stand, but I use whatever strength I have left in my exhausted body to help him as best as I can.

“Stand aside, soldier!”

I turn and gape at my commander, and my army that stands at rigid attention beside him. Blank faces stare back at me.

“Have we not done enough?” I scream out my pain and frustration.

I stare at the faces I once considered friends and allies. Now all I see are strangers--and murderers. Tears of black stream down my face as I recognize the evil inherent in all man. I close my eyes, knowing that I'm one of them.

The final words of the dying man I hold in my arms reaches my ears. Like a lover’s gentle caress, they linger within me.

“My wife and daughter … they are out there … Please, I beg you … find them and … keep them safe,” he whispers. Ebony tears trickle down the stranger’s cheeks. He falls silent as death claims him.

Alas, my army turns on me.