Romance Fan Fiction / Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Catch and Release ❯ Soldier ( Chapter 8 )

Original Prompt :: Soldier

New Title :: N/A

Word Count :: 306

Its medal and stone. Cold, cold metal and stone. And yet everyone who smiles and speaks gently to me expects this little bit of metal and stone to comfort me. This is to make it okay when not even my faith can reassure me of anything.

There are commanding officers and war supporters all about me. And while they feel sorrow, they still feel righteous and correct. For they are not there, they hear no stories, and they feel no loss. The solider left me with a promise of a safe homecoming to follow. And its reiteration on the wind is what pushed me through the evening, where they spoke again and again of the bomb here, the suicide there, the attack too close for comfort and the little gradual success. Success I can't bring myself to see any longer.

I went to the support for family left here and I listened to them glorify the call of duty these soldiers answered. Glorify death, loss and too much blood. I was one in the beginning, one in the middle and now lost in the end.

So, so lost. So, so unsure. I'm lost in a tide of soldiers going out and soldiers coming back and flag covered coffins and so much black.

The Stars and Stripes have been folded and I've got it in my hand, but I can't feel it. For I can feel but two things. And those things are my daughter's hand which clutches mine and the clap of my father-in-law of a general's hand on my shoulder as even he too loses his faith in the “call of duty”.

And then the sky joins us in crying as shots are fired off, as they lower a mahogany casket, as the army buries a soldier, and as I say goodbye to my wife.