Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. My steel-tipped boots thudded mechanically on the dry grass as I blindly made my way towards the marquee.
Marquee? Who puts up a marquee at a funeral? I guessed they were just trying to make the most out of a bad situation. Pop some bottles, sing some songs. That’s the army for you. Nothing ever fazed them. No matter how many bodies you had seen dismembered; how many children crying on the streets; how you watched helplessly as the life drained out of your best friend as he lay bleeding on the cobblestones: they’d seen it all. They were bereft of human compassion now. If you even flinched at a shooting they would have you shipped off to a psychiatrist to diagnose you for PTSD.
“Private?” I spun round, my hand instinctively reaching for a non-existent rifle by my left shoulder. It is a balding man in his middle ages, decked in immaculate military attire, a dozen bronze badges gleaming in the North Carolina sun as he eyed me through beady brown eyes. Colonel... Sanders? No, that was the Fried Chicken guy. This was someone I knew, someone from the Seattle training base. The resemblance to Sanders was still uncanny. What was his name? It scared me that I could not remember. But how, at the same time, could I remember some things so well, too well, with such unnerving accuracy that at times I find myself petrified by my own memories? I could count the number of stones lying about his head; how many of those blasted Taliban were running away; the colours that glittered in Ross Mulgrue’s eyes as he uttered his last word: “Dante.”
“Private Dante Reynolds!” The Chicken Man barked. “You knew the man well, yes? We need someone to present the eulogy the wife wrote, she’s a bit wracked up right now-”
I caught half the words he spoke, then was distracted by the eagle embroidery on his lapel. It was the same as Ross’...I jerked myself back into the present and said something extremely intelligent like, “Huh?”
The bemusement on the Colonel’s face turned to one of pity, which did not suit him. It did not suit anyone, not right then. I did not want anybody’s pity, not if they wanted to keep both their eyes in. I nodded inanely to stop him from saying anything else, and pushed past him to the podium.
“Oh, and Reynolds,” Chicken Man warned in a monotone. “It’s open casket.” He must have thought that would mean something to me. But it did not. I had already seen the worst of it - I was the one who ran to him first, who tried desperately to resuscitate him, who whispered comforts and false assurances to him as his blood soaked my shaking hands. How bad could the aftermath really be?
Much worse, I soon discovered. Ten minutes later, after receiving the eulogy from a sobbing Mrs. Mulgrue, I stood over the cold dead body of my best friend. He looked like the guy off Twilight, his facial muscles contorted in death and the veins popping blue against the pale grey, and the odour...
“Did he suffer?” Maddie Mulgrue had asked me through a veil of tears. I forgot what I said in reply. Maybe nothing.
I cleared my throat, a cacophony in my head after so long in silence. Aisles upon aisles of people were watching me expectantly. Seeing their tears flow, I had to fight the urge to throw myself down and cry my own eyes out. "We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of the... the great man that was Private Ross Mulgrue. A loyal soldier, friend and husband, he fought long and hard for his country in a seventeen month posting in Afghanistan, and died... and died valiantly in crossfires exchanged with the Taliban." That's when the paper dropped from my grasp. I lost my train of thought. Gunshots fired in my head. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bullets flying everywhere, not thinking, just methodically pulling my finger across the trigger again and again and again. My vision narrowed to the gun in my hand as I dropped it and abandoned the fight to try and save my friend. But it was hopeless. I was faintly aware that it was not my fault, but I could not hold back the one overpowering thought raging through my brain: Ross died because of me.
My throat contracted. I was frozen to the spot, knowing that my biting manacles of ice would never melt away until I told the truth. So I did.
"No, that... that wasn't how it was. It wasn't them. It was me. I shot him. I shot Ross Mulgrue."