The floorboards are stark and withered. Blood from the man I just shot seeps in between wide cracks. Normally there is a pool, but not here, it’s just flowing away, into the dark beneath.
The walls of the room are sparse too, in some places draped in worn tapestries. Being underground, it is windowless. Three kerosene lamps stretch their feeble light throughout the room. There is a scratched table, an old wood stove, battered implements for cooking. Ashes lie in the floor of the cooker. A faded picture of a priest on the wall with a long beard and a black skufia on his head. On the table, a slab of coarse bread stands next to a pan of gruel. All signs that the woman cowering in the corner has scraped and fought for a meagre living in the siege.
Her dress is filthy; it looks like it was pink once, but is so covered in grime that the only identifiable features are the seams of numerous repairs. A grey apron lies across her lap. Heavy boots are worn and cracked. She is a pig. But then they all are. The dead one at my feet, the ones next door, the ones yesterday, and the day before. And tomorrow.
It is silent in here. Not even the gunfire and shelling penetrate. It’s peaceful, in a macabre way. I can see why she came here.
I look at her face. She stares back at me. Her brow is taut, her eyes lined with grit and fatigue and the trauma she has so far survived. And I have added to her woes, by killing her pig of a husband. Or maybe I have helped her. It’s one less mouth to feed, one less man to grope her, one less useless lump of flesh taking up space in this hovel. One of her eyes twitches; that is her only movement. Her lips are clamped shut, clinging to rage and terror and shock. No doubt she is preparing herself for what inevitably follows.
But it’s her lucky day. She’s lucky I’m the one who shot her husband.
I never understand why you’d stick your dick into something you despise. She’s a troll for fuck’s sake. Plenty of my fellows wouldn’t hesitate though. They’d be on her like a wolf on a rabbit, all blind grunts and her squealing and scratching as she is forced under. Some of them go silent, and just stare their way through, as if eye contact will shame a pimply kid with a rifle into stopping. It never does. And months later the foreign press craps on about human rights. They aren’t human for chrissake. She should thank me.
I lean my rifle on the edge of the table.
No, I like my women to want to know I’m boss. And if I’m lucky, she’ll have a glint in her eye, and she’ll want seconds, as if to say buck up, man, and do something of note. But this, this piece of muck – I’d rather fuck my general’s horse.
In fact I’d rather eat it. It’s not like we’ve been well provisioned. The bread itself is justification for killing the man, not that I needed one. What a useless clusterfuck this war is.
I lean over the table and pick up the bread. It is as grainy as brick. I lift it to my nose, it smells like dirt. There is no mould on it. I bite. It is dry, like eating the dirt, but my stomach applauds. I rip off a chunk and dunk it in the soup. Clods fall off and drift like ice floats. I shove the morsel into my mouth and chew. The soup is thin and tasteless, but it makes the bread easier to swallow.
I rip off another and nod to the woman as I drop it into the bowl. She’s probably stupid enough to think I’m complimenting her cooking. I’m not. I’m telling her I’m eating and I don’t care if she starves. You have to remind people of that, keep up the game. I have a rifle and her dead husband on the floor, and I don’t have scruples.
When the bread is done, I lift the bowl to my mouth and drain it, all the while keeping one eye on the woman. It’s war, you never know, you survive by staying alert.
I throw the bowl on to the table, and it rocks in a circular rhythm that mocks the grimness of the room. Round and round it goes, in diminishing circles until it finally comes to a halt with an insolent thud.
I stand looking at nothing in particular and pick my teeth. A bit of tooth comes out. I grimace and swear. I inspect it: a yellowing speck of enamel on my greasy finger. I feel inside my mouth to see where it came from, but they are all rough and uneven and unclean. I flick it at the priest but it falls short.
I burp.
Did I detect a mote of disdain in her grim face when I did? It wasn’t for you, woman. Don’t get above yourself. It was for me, just a simple – and enjoyable – release of the air that came down with the gruel you made. It wasn’t an exercise of power, I couldn’t care a fart for you. It was a basic physical response that gave me a moment’s relief in all this chaos.
I wipe my chin. I could cogitate on the meaning of a belch all day, but there is food and death to find in other little hovels. That’s how it goes, we go from place to place killing and eating. Fuck knows why, we’re just sent here.
I turn to go, but notice her dress move. It is not a movement where she is about to get up. I watch as a young boy emerges from beneath her dress. She moves then, and shouts something to the boy and reaches to pull him back to her but he escapes. Her hand goes to her mouth and tears flow.
The boy stands next to the wall, his hands behind him, and glares up at me defiantly.
I check him out. His hair is a dusty mop, his cheeks are ruddy and gaunt. He has a dirty coat and shorts and scuffed boots without socks. He has not had his growth spurt; he won’t until his nutrition improves, ie, probably never.
He is a pig like his mother, but he is not a threat.
I say, ‘Hello, young lad.’ He stays silently staring. His mother does not move, but looks at me, no doubt waiting for my next move. Her eyes are wide and wet, pleading for clemency.
Ah shit.
You’ve shot the man, you’ve raped the woman – if that’s your thing – and then a kid shows up. You’re not meant to kill the kiddies, but they will grow up with the memory of this event seared into their little brains. So when their malnourished bodies turn into adults they want revenge, and they hunt down the kids of those who took their life away.
I know this; it is why I am here. I had the tales from my grandfather drilled into me, about these filthy good-for-nothings who ruined their lives.
Options. One, I could kill the boy. That would end the memory cycle. But the mother might produce more, and infect them with hate. So, two, I should kill her as well, and leave three bodies for the maggots to infiltrate. But then when they’re found there’d be an outcry in the press and my people would be misrepresented yet again by people who have no – no – understanding of the cause for what I did – the necessity of it.
Or three, I could let them live. But that would leave the boy infected and a mother determined to raise him in the spirit of vengeance. No, they won’t see my departure as an act of kindness inspiring them to thoughts of peace. We all want the good life, but they’re as dumb as ducks, and would want to kill us all back.
I eye the boy, and keep tabs on his mother. Neither moves.
I spit. Not out of contempt, but frustration, to fill in the time before I do what needs doing.
The boy spits too. But part of it slobbers on his chin. He wipes it off in a sharp move, as if to hide his error.
Cheeky piece of shit. Trying to assert his presence by aping me. Trying to assert some equality. His mother is distraught.
I snort.
He snorts in response, then glares at me. He’s just a fucking kid. He doesn’t know that it’s best not to rile up the person who’s killed your dad and stolen your food, and is likely to kill you.
Odds are he’s thinking I’m a cunt like I think he is. That’d be a match.
You mean nothing, punk. You’re another piece of flotsam in this whole sea of loathing. And that’s the last little lesson you’ll learn in your short life.
I sigh and pick up my rifle from beside the table. Time to do the needful. Option two.
In the moment I have taken my eyes off them, while picking up my weapon, he has produced a gun.
Oh Jesus, junior has his papa’s pistol.
It is aimed at me, indiscriminately, shaking, in a wiry little fist. He has screwed up his face too, into a sadly comical rictus he’d no doubt copied from a cartoon. He’s not the original sort, this little boy.
This little shit.
‘Put it down, kid,’ I say. ‘You fire that, the recoil will knock your arm off.’
He doesn’t understand of course. He no speak my language.
I have my rifle in my right hand, hand around he barrel which still points upwards from when I picked it up. If I move to aim it, he just might shoot. He is about six steps from me. If I jump him, he just might shoot. He’s probably too scared, but he just might.
I smile, not too patronisingly I hope. He does not copy me this time. He believes he has the upper hand.
I’ll work him. Give him a few minutes, he’ll weaken.
‘Listen, soldier,’ I say, ‘do you even know how to use that thing?’ I have no doubt he does. Dad would’ve told him, ‘If I get killed then protect your mother with this’, and would’ve shown him the safety release, how to load and aim it etc. They would’ve gone through some practice shots, but not too many – ammunition is scarce. The fucking dead man. I should have done the wife as well, which would’ve exposed the boy earlier.
He spits, this time without dribble, and it lands near my feet.
The little turd.
‘You trying to assert your authority?’ I say, ‘You half-witted spawn of a disease-ridden donkey.’ I say this in a polite tone, persuasively even, as one might to tease a dog. It might calm him into submission. ‘Did you come out of your mother’s arse the day you were born?’
I point to his mother. ‘Out of this withered pig’s cunt?’
He is not distracted. Fucker.
I take a big breath, and stare at him sagely. In a voice of an old man guiding the young apprentice I say, ‘This is war, my young friend. This shit happens. People get killed, people kill. It has ever been thus.’
I spread my hands out ingratiatingly, but keep my rifle ready to move.
But this kid is stone. A pigeon could shit on him, if there were any.
We stand in silence, eyes locked. He is holding the gun with both hands now. They still shake.
Fuck it, time to act. I say, ‘You hesitate, kid, you get shot.’
I drop, lift my rifle and gunfire shatters the room. Mother and boy scream, a searing heat rips my throat and blood spatters my cheek. I cram my hand to my neck and blood pours over my fingers. I rise a bit and choke and my head flares with pain. I see mother cradling son. He is hit in the arm, he will live to finish me. I claw the floor for my rifle but cannot locate it.
I fall back. My eyes spin, across the dark ceiling, the sombre priest, the underside of the table, the corpse beside me, then the mother looking down upon me, pistol raised. Rasping, I raise a hand. Pain roars in me. I cough blood and vomit; it spills on to my shirt and chest, even out of my throat across my hands. I stare at her, wretched with surrender, gagging for air.
A light burns my eyes. I want to scream ‘You fucks. There’s a world out there, blue skyed and lit. We all want it, but I won’t get it and nor will you. Someone will, we all believe that, that’s why we fight, but don’t ask me who or where they are, or how they get it. We’re just caught up in this together, you, me, the boy. Go outside and tell them to stop, go outside and dodge the bullets, bear the beatings, take your boy outside and look for the blue sky. Go, go!’
But my throat is shot and the last of my blood weeps through the gaps in the floorboards. I gasp, and see a mother eclipsed by pistol shot.
* * * * * * *
Photo by Denny Müller, c/- Unsplash.
