Somebody

Somebody

Somebody stood there, his long black and yellow hair was blowing in the evening wind.
The sun was about to settle in the west, bleeding her last drops of red on a sea of white cotton balls, each one absorbing it in and turning into shades of milky pink, bright orange-red and deep dark purple.
We were dragging our feet back to the camp, which was no more than a few tents, one portable shower and a trailer for the kitchen. We were carrying stretchers and heavy loads. Every few minutes you could hear someone shouting.
"Can somebody help me!"
"Can somebody help with the stretcher!"
"Is there somebody available?!"
"Somebody!"
"I need help!"
We'd already walked for more than 40 miles, because of the cold weather, our commander hardly stopped for drinking and just wanted to keep going so we don't freeze.
I tried my hardest to give everything I could. I carried the heavy water-tank and helped with carrying and pushing the stretchers. I wanted to prove myself, to make the best impression on my commander and my friends. I just gave everything that I could and then tried to give a little more. Suddenly I started to get dizzy.
At first I tried to ignore it, and concentrate on the road, but I could feel my head spinning. I felt as if I had few too many bears. "Can somebody help with the stretcher?!", I yelled but no one came.
The world seemed to spin around me. I saw myself sailing on a boat to the sunset, a warm feeling filled me with pleasure.
I was on a little white sail boat sailing in the Mediterranean Sea with my beautiful little blond girlfriend. I could hear her rolling laugh in my ears. I could see her beautiful smile with her perfect teeth. Her gorgeous green eyes and her delicate eye brows, raised above them, as if asking a question. I leaned over to kiss he wonderful lips, feeling the softness and warmth and then the pole hit my head with blinding force.
The next thing that I remember is me laying on a stretcher way up in the air with a pounding pain in my head as if it hit a running train. My whole body was shivering with pain and fever and every muscle was tight and as hard as cement. "Can somebody help me!", I wanted to yell, but no sound came out of my mouth, or maybe everybody was deaf.
"Can somebody help me!"
There he stood.
I saw him, wagging his tail and panting with his long tongue, a huge German Shepard. The platoon stopped. They put down the stretchers. Eli came up to the dog and petted him on the head. The dog stood on his back feet, gave him a hug and licked his face. Eli was laughing his hearty laugh, "what a cute dog!" he said, "We should adopt him, and have a dog for our unit!"
"Yes!", "What a great idea!" everybody agreed. "But what should we name him?" Eli asked around.
"Somebody!" I cried for help again.
The dog came to my stretcher and started to lick my face. He lay himself on my frozen body and I could feel my drained life coming back to me with tingling sensation like a thousand ants dancing on my body.
"Somebody!" "Somebody! What a great name!" everybody got so excited, even our crazy commander loved the idea and agreed to accept the dog as our team's dog. His name was "Somebody" ever since.

Somebody became our dog. Wherever we went and whatever we did, Somebody was there with us. In all the training, whenever someone called for help, he would be there. Even if he couldn't physically help and perform the needed task, just his presence would give me the comfort and the strength to go on, and never give up. He seemed to have the same affect on all the soldiers of my team.
He even joined us sometimes on some special operations. Going into houses, searching for suspects, accompanied by this enormous dog, had a grate effect, and many times the suspect would just turn himself in, when the dog sniffed his hiding place.
At night, Somebody would crewel up to one of the guys sleeping place and they would keep each other company. We all wanted him to pick us and were jealous of the chosen one and proud when it was our turn to be chosen. He seemed to know who was the one that needed him him the most, like a guardian angle.
One Saturday morning we stayed at the base and our commander, told us to go for a run around the base. He told Gadi, the paramedic, to lead the run. Gadi was a very athletic guy. He was in the national basketball team and spent most of his time exercising and lifting weights. The rest of us were also in pretty good shape, a hundred times better than I am today, but nowhere close to Gadi.
The sun was going up in the sky and the heat begun to affect the growing line of soldiers stretching along the quiet dusty-asphalt road in the almost-empty-Saturday-Morning-army-base. We were running or dragging along the middle of the road ignoring the basic safety rules. Even our commander could not keep up with Gadi and was dragging behind. Only Somebody, was able to keep-up, he would run around every body, trying to keep everybody in line.
Suddenly a speeding truck cam out of nowhere. Maybe the driver did not expect to find a living soul in the base on Saturday morning. Somebody was barking, running around warning everybody to get off the road. I heard a load horn and screeching wheels noise. Everybody run off the road, I jumped to the side, falling and rolling in the sand.
Almost everybody made it, all but one. Somebody was too busy barking and making sure that everybody got off the road, that he forgot to jump off the the road himself, and his back-left leg got caught under the tracks back-right wheel. The track dragged the poor dog for at least a hundred yards, until it finally stopped near Gadi at the head of the line, leaving a long trail of black and red lines on the road.
Gadi leaned over the wounded dog and examine his leg. His white broken bones were showing through the lifeless rag-like flesh that used to be his leg. Gadi lifted Somebody in his strong muscular arms. The open wound was bleeding, streaming in thin lines along his round arm muscles down his muscular legs all the way to the boiling road. Sizzling and flowing to the shoulder, finally absorbing in the white sand, turning it to shades of milky pink, bright orange-red and deep dark purple.
"Can somebody help me!!! Somebody!!!", he yelled from the top of his lungs.
Somebody died.

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