The Book of Sue - Chapter II

AVISO: seguem-se descrições violentas.

‘If I stand very still maybe the rest of the world will disappear…’ thought Private ‘Zero’ closing his eyes and gripping his rifle close to his chest as the buzzing sound of bombs descending amplified around him. His comrades screamed, warning him to take cover. But he froze. He stood there, bombshells falling only a very short distance away from him.

The problem was the sound; the whole sound of it. That was the worst part. Private ‘Zero’ got used to the sight of blood. After three years of countless severed body parts, heads exploding from cruelly accurate gunshots; carrying the weight of dead bodies in a profound sense of reverence and dignity… Dignity, in such a place! Private ‘Zero’ got accustomed to the blisters on the sole of his feet; he got accustomed to eat his meals over the spots of blood and dirt that covered his green uniform day in and day out. He even got catatonically accustomed to the loss of friends he had known for months and years.

But the sound… The terrible metallic sound of bullets hitting the helmets of helpless young soldiers like himself. The constant cries of grown men who suddenly saw their own hands, their own legs be blown up, shot at, severed and cut open. The screams, the pain… the scream of it all… The terrifying sound of men reloading their guns over and over again in fear that the next reload might be the last one, in fear that the painful seconds it takes to reload a gun will not be enough to regain strength to get up again and face enemy fire. And the constant blaze of enemy fire... the rhythmical yet out of pace sound of constant gunfire.

Private ‘Zero’ stopped because for a split second, he heard absolutely nothing. He saw his comrades speaking but he could not hear their words. The buzzing of the falling bombs that only a few seconds ago was amplified to a level where he could no longer listen to his own prayers inside his head; it all disappeared for one wickedly long second.

‘If I stand very still, if I learn to engulf and enjoy this peaceful silence that takes hold of my mind at this exact instance; maybe it will make it all go away. Maybe it will stop the killing and the hurting. It only takes one second of silence and then the world disappears.’

So, the last thought that 21-year-old Private ‘Zero’ saw running inside this head, moments after he looked down at his jacket and saw a soaking stream of blood running down from the left side of his chest was a sentence he had written in his diary on the first day of the campaign:

‘I guess you’d have to be on this side of the barricade to smell the stench of decay.’