Get Down

“Get down!”

I recognized the words, acknowledged what they meant, and disregarded them completely. Bigger concerns, you know? The rubble was still raining down on me from the IED. God, it was beautiful. Rust colored dirt arched through the air, full of fluid tans and browns. Through it all, the swirling patterns of smoke left by the explosion twisted their way upwards, dancing in a way that seemed on the verge of sensual, if not blatantly erotic. As I stared up into the shifting tapestry above me, the debris tinked and scritched along my helmet, providing an orchestral accompaniment to the ringing in my ears and the vision laid before me. I closed my eyes and let the song carry me away for a moment, but just a moment.

My eyes swung down to consider the remains of what once was an armored Humvee. I was close enough to see how the explosion had warped the metal, torn it, shredded it. The remains resembled nothing like what would befit such a creature. Thoughts of elephant graveyards sprung to mind, areas where powerful, lumbering creatures went to die. What else could this road be? But this was no graveyard — this was a garden. Twisted metal ascended to form intricate patterns. Roses of steel, with delicate thorns. A dense undergrowth of rubber, torn to pieces and artfully arranged by chance. Shattered glass reflected light in a barrage of colors, rainbows spewed about in a complex pattern that somehow brought each individual piece into one crystalline image.

Flashes of light drew my attention towards the decaying buildings surrounding me. Swarthy, shadowy men ringed the roofs, pointing their weapons downward. I didn’t see any guns — I saw paintbrushes. Muzzle blasts become miniature novas, stunning and terrible to behold and far too numerous to count. Like their astronomical cousins, they signaled death. But through that destruction, rebirth became possible. Strike me down, slay me and my comrades, they’ll just ship someone else out here to play their games in the blowing sand…

“Get down!”

I come back to consciousness. Dreams again. My hands rub at tired eyes before I stare up at the ceiling. The ceiling stares back at me with its tile patterns of grey. Months’ worth of these nights now. “All perfectly normal,” the doctor had said. Yeah, normal. Normal is a green lawn, white picket fence, government issued two point five children. It isn’t waking up every night covered in sweat. I reach out to touch my wife’s hand, but it’s not there. She left me a month ago. Or was it two? Took the kids with her, too. My drinking had become an issue, I guess. Not sleeping is an issue too, which would she rather deal with? Looks like neither. Maybe I should have pushed for that extra half a kid. Or painted that fence.

My feet swing out to the floor beside the couch. It’s cold. The bottle is on the table. I pick it up and judge that there’s enough left before finishing it off. Pill bottles fall off the couch as I stand, rolling across the floor. Something else to pick up later. I try to read the doctor’s notes, but the words won’t come into focus. Blue pills, I think. Or maybe the yellow one. Doesn’t matter, they won’t help. Haven’t yet, no reason to change now. I walk to the kitchen to get a new bottle. Beer? No, something stronger. The liquor store clerk almost wouldn’t sell me the whiskey. Could have changed his mind real fast had I wanted to. As it was, his manager made him ring me up. Good for both of them. Good for me.

I sit back on the couch and take a drink. I reach around for the nearest bottle of pills on the floor and read over the label: “WHEN TAKING THIS MEDICATION DO NOT DRINK ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES.” My head drops back and my eyes shut. I don’t dream when I don’t drink. Yeah, the dreams keep me up, but God help me if I don’t want it…

“Get down!”

I finally put a face to the voice calling out to me; it was the LT from the convoy. He looked like a Roman god of combat — his uniform scorched from the blast but still relatively intact, helmet gone and golden hair shining like a pillar of light in the Afghani sun, crouched behind a crumbling wall and returning fire with his own paintbrush. I swear, the man was right out of a movie. He even had the Oakley’s with a light coating of dust and smoke to complete the image. I saw his mouth moving, urging me to take cover. But all I could think of is what his eyes must look like. Would they be wide in alarm, jittering back and forth like the cow that realizes what the pneumatic, repetitive chunk noise up ahead must mean? Would they be narrow and focused like the pictures of the old World War Two warriors we’re supposed to idolize? Or would they simply be eyes? No different from mine, merely adjusting to the light as necessary.

His arms waved wildly at me, urging me to come closer to him. But I wasn’t in a hurry. I hadn’t finished appreciating this opportunity. I couldn’t remember having ever seen such a brilliant shade of blue like the sky above me. The smoke still twisted and turned its way upward, turning the sky into a shifting robin’s egg of speckled glory. They could have all the hearts and minds they wanted, I just wanted this moment.

The LT got to his feet and started to sprint towards me. I motioned him away, there was no cover by me. He had the best position possible already, there was absolutely no reason to move into danger. The cracking noise of enemy fire ramped up to a crescendo as the LT began his mad dash. Little puffs of dirt and gravel rose up around his feet, giving me the impression that he was walking on clouds. Ten steps away from me, one crack stood out from the rest. Nine steps away, a cloud of brilliant scarlet escaped from his golden head. Seven steps away, the Roman god’s body hit the charred earth. Three steps away, it finally slid to a stop. As I watched, the intense scarlet from before began to pool around what had become a gritty blonde echo that had lost its radiance. I looked up and saw where the insurgents brush had painted the wall. It was the reaper, Death himself, come to collect the LT personally…

“Get down!”

The sound of the bottle hitting the floor wakes me. I sit there, listening to the faint gurgle of noise as the whiskey pours out onto the floor. Something else to clean up later.

I stand up, wavering for a moment before regaining my balance. I take a step and have to put a hand against the wall to steady myself, but the wall isn’t where I remember it being. My arm hits the floor hard, and white-hot pain shoots up from my wrist to my shoulder. For a moment, the room flashes into sudden clarity — disheveled table cluttered with pills and bottles, a leather couch with newly minted stains and wounds, a portrait of my wife and children on a beautiful spring afternoon that I took in April, three years ago. But then the pain fades to a dull throb, and the moment is gone.

My feet find the ground and I stumble forward. I reach the door to the backyard and lean against it. I’m exhausted. Time passes, I don’t know how much. Finally work up the energy to get the door open and my feet carry me outside. It’s cold, like… well, just cold. I look up into the sky, wanting to see something, anything at all in the night sky. Nothing. Can’t even see the moon.

I’m on the ground, still staring upwards. Maybe if I just keep looking, things will change. Maybe the stars will come out. Maybe the moon. Not the moon here though. I want the other one, the one back there…

“Get down!”

I couldn’t find where the voice was coming from. My eyes darted back and forth, seeking the source. The LT’s blood had begun to soak into the earth, fading the scarlet out to a muted maroon. The reaper on the wall, content with a job well done, slowly dripped away into nothing more than a random splash of color against an off-white wall.

A roar, deeper and fiercer than anything a mere creature could possibly hope to compete with, came and went in a blaze of glory, leaving nothing but an echo ringing through my ears. I looked up just in time to watch the fighter bank around for another pass, lining up with the dark men atop the roofs. Fresh Humvees, gleaming with the sun reflecting off glass and pouring forth their own fire from dragon scaled mouths, tore through the street to protect us from those we were sent to protect.

The fire blossoming out from the insurgent weapons began to drop off as creatures who had been brave fighting men mere moments before became nothing more than rats fleeing the ship caught in the kraken’s maw. By one’s and two’s they ran, and by one’s and two’s they died. Broken bodies fell to the earth, cut down by our blades of fire.

To my surprise, I found myself with my M9 in hand, holy vengeance pouring forth from the barrel towards those around me. The sights lined up with a fleeing figure, and with the mere twitch of a finger I chose to end his path upon this world. My hand moved, finding another mortal to judge. And another. And another. I strode forward towards those who must be punished. What use did I have for cover? I was a god of old, full of wrath and pride. I was Shiva, calling down death upon those who had displeased me. I was the deliverer of brimstone, of pain, of rage. I could not be stopped, would not be stopped. They fell before me like wheat before the scythe, and I looked down and saw that it was good.

I stopped before a fallen adversary, one who had been laid low by my righteous fury. Yet the rat still clung to the driftwood of life, fighting against my absolution. I pitied him in that moment, this vermin who strove to kill a god. As my arm reached out to deliver judgment, in his eyes I saw recognition — I was Omega. And all the while, words poured forth from my mouth…

“Get down!”

My eyes snap open and take in the moon above me. Not the right moon, but it didn’t matter anymore. I saw what had to be done, saw the one way to get to the next rally point. My mind races faster than it had in ages as I desperately try to remember where I had left my salvation.

Feet with growing steadiness carry me back inside the dark home. I reach for a light and accidently knock a portrait from the wall. It splinters on the ground, leaving a tear through the picture of my family on a spring day amidst shattered glass. Somehow, that tear seemed to take apart the individual pieces that had once formed a crystalline image, leaving only a forgotten tableau. Something else to fix up later.

I find myself in the study, the one room in the house that hadn’t seen a human presence in ages. Hands fly at drawers, tearing them out and throwing them upon the ground. The search begins to hit a frantic pace, hopelessness beginning to set in once again.

There. My heartbeat slows noticeably, and the breath catches in my throat. My M9, covered with a flat gleam of black, lies in the bottom of a drawer, under sheets of prescriptions and doc’s recommendations. All his schooling, and the answer rested beneath it the entire time. Once shaking hands steady as they reach for the weapon, the instrument, the paintbrush. My salvation feels oddly warm to the touch, like the grass on a sun-kissed hill, or the touch of a woman after months of hardship and toil. Fingers trace along the entirety of it, feeling the slight imperfections that somehow bring its reality into focus. This is no biblical angel, above reproach and condemnation. This weapon knows what it means to be used, what it means to truly pass judgment and establish a sense of rightness with the world. It begs to be used, to fulfill the purpose it was made to undertake.

As I lift it upwards, a kindling of the feelings from a distant past begin to burn within me. The black of the weapon opens up into an abyss of darkness, enfolding me in its warmth and surety. The barrel no longer exists. In its place, a tunnel. I see the LT waving me onward, blackened uniform and all. If I strain, I can just make out the words on his lips…

“Get down.”