Image Credit Pixabay.com
Note: This story has been entered in two contests. However, they are not the same entry. Rather a Part 1 and a Part 2.
Part 1 Dying – Posted in Finish the Fiction Story Contest - Week #29 - @bananafish.
Part 2 Reborn – Included in this post.
Prompt: When you die, you wake . . .
From @calluna’s writing contest. For more information please see the link:
@calluna/tell-a-story-to-me-and-win-5-steem-writing-contest-10-when-you-die-and-winners-of-9
My Entry:
Part 2 Reborn – . . . an explosion knocked him to the ground momentarily paralyzing him with fear.
Had he died? He did not know?
Only the strange sounds persisted.
He lay on his back feeling water soak into his coat. More explosions, men yelling in English, gun shots, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
This must be hell he thought. He must have died and gone to hell.
It seemed the only explanation, after years alone on a space station orbiting an inhospitable rock in an unidentified solar system.
“Ethan get up!”
He knew the command had been addressed to him. He could feel the energy of the man who’d made the demand. Even in the madness of snarling shrapnel and the putrid smell of corpses, he knew the voice meant for him to get up.
He opened his eyes to a cloudy sky, surprised by the green army uniform that adorned his body. This moment should be one of joy. After years of system checks onboard “The Decaf”, with conversations only with an AI named Querquobad, this moment on solid ground under a planet’s atmosphere the realization of countless prayers rudely interrupted by unending gunfire.
“Ethan get up!” Screamed the man now standing over him. He hadn’t seen a human in nearly four years. His last encounters taking place for over a month on computer screens. No contact except the clean metal hull of the space station.
Now this man grabbed him by the collar of his coat and tried to lift him to his feet. He could feel the pull of gravity in the suction of the mud. So heavy. How could he overcome this burden to walk on two feet?
“Get up Ethan! Or I’m going to bash your fucking brains in! You need to man the machine gun! The Germans are overrunning our position! Get! The! Fuck! Up!”
“Boom!” Another loud explosion close to them. It knocked the man who had been yelling down. Ethan rolled to take in the scene. It must be a trench from World War I. He could see the antique machine gun a couple of feet from him. He crawled to it and took control of the trigger.
German soldiers rushed toward him in the fog of the mud trenches silhouetted in the sharp shadows of barb wire.
Ethan opened fire, pounding lead into the wall of human flesh that he recognized as the enemy from old war documentaries.
He fired round after round for an eternity cutting them down like blades of grass with a lawn mower. A stranger helped with the loading of the gun. He just kept pulling back on the trigger like in a video game. No mercy for these poor men who had left their families at home.
333
“Amnesia?” Asked the army doctor.
“Yes sir, amnesia,” said Ethan, and although he could recall every detail of his life with ease, he knew this would be the best route.
The two sat in metal chairs in the sparse surroundings of a make shift medical facility of what used to be a movie theater. They’d found some privacy in a break from battle with a group of injured men being tended to by nurses.
People in this time period fainted at the sight of a rocket giving the moon a black eye on film. To try and convince them that people lived on the moon in his time, or that he’s the product of an experiment with paradoxes, wormholes, and currently inter-dimensional time travel, would most likely fall on deaf ears. Maybe even get him committed.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Asked the army doctor.
Ethan remembered it well. He woke up ready to go; “The Decaf” finally at full power. And after years on the other side of the rift from the kiss of the pylons he’d renamed Romeo and Juliet, he felt confident that the space station could return home.
Only after he’d pushed the button to initiate the rift in space time with the kiss of Romeo and Juliet, his AI companion Querquobad notified him that they were losing cabin pressure and that he would die in the explosion.
“Well, waking up after an explosion, and being told to man the machine gun. That’s really about it. I mean, I know why we’re at war, and who we’re at war with. I know where France is on a map. Things like that sir. Only, where I’m from, my family, my unit here on the front, it’s all a blank to me sir,” said Ethan.
“OK Private I believe you. Let me level with you son. We are in desperate need of good fighting men. Your courage against a company of German soldiers has been well documented. It might even win you a medal.”
“Really?”
“Yes! Don’t take that lightly. I’m in the rear with the gear and don’t plan on seeing much action even if this war continues as it most likely will. We’re already two years in and you Yankees just got here. It would be demoralizing to morale to let someone like you leave the ranks.”
“I see . . .” said Ethan a little disappointed about the prospects of getting out of this bloody affair. He stared at the red rug on the ground for a bit.
“What I propose is that you fake it until you make it.”
“Fake it until I make it?” Asked Ethan.
“Yes Private. Fake it until you make it. You’ve already proven yourself on the battlefield. Take it easy, and try to remember what you need to do. Follow the people around you. Try to blend in. Maybe another explosion will knock your memory back into your brain,” laughed the army doctor.
“Yes sir, I’ll do my best,” said Ethan, just as he had to the International Space Federation when he’d accepted his suicide mission to man the space station through the rift. The scientists would be impressed.
333
Ethan walked through the wet streets of the village to his barracks. A soldier, he had always been a soldier, and fighting on the Western Front would be a new challenge that he would confront with tenacity.
“Ethan! Ethan! You’re a fucking hero!” Yelled a young man running toward him.
“Excuse me?”
“Come on Ethan, what’s the fuss, you’re a fucking war hero!”
“And you are?”
“I’m your best friend. We joined the army together. Remember that dame, Eyola?”
Thank you,
Cyrus Emerson
Red Roses the audiobook for your consideration at the Voice Arts Awards (NYC), and the Grammys (LA).
https://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Red-Roses-Audiobook/B07F2LWHPN
Red Roses narrated by Kira Omans
www.kiraomans.com
Red Roses music by Rike Luxx
www.rikeluxxbeats.com
Red Roses sound by Pond5
www.pond5.com
Also, available from The Author:
Fear and Loathing in the State of Jefferson - ebook
https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B079R5KLPN&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_GsURAbAVDYNEM
Lost Angel – Introduction with Ray Manzarek of The Doors
https://www.downpour.com/lost-angel?sp=249812