Murder in a Small Town: Jim's War

JIM'S WAR

              

After an eternity, Jim tries to open his eyes. He is disoriented and a raging torrent of pain floods his body. It starts in his head and pulses through his chest and limbs. He tastes grit and blood in his mouth; tries to spit, but only mud comes out. His left eye won’t open, and the left side of his face is matted with dirt, sand, and blood. Through his confusion, Jim remembers flashes of light, gunfire, a firefight, and that he had been hit in the head. “I’m not dead”, he tries to say, but nothing comes out. “Where is everybody? Did they leave me?” He can hear people speaking, but not his language. Surreal ghostly figures pass over him without stopping. Without raising his head, he slowly looks to his right and sees the bodies of three other soldiers from his platoon. The sun, haloed by spectral refraction, is nearing the horizon and casts long, peaked shadows that seem to waver rhythmically and radiate from the lifeless bodies. His severely injured brain tries to shut down, but not before offering him images of a daring plan. 
           Like beads on a wire, fragments of awareness are strung together in glimpses of one possible future. Coming to sometime later, Jim begins to put in motion his new blueprint for life. Not hearing any voices or movement as before, he slowly and with overwhelming pain, drags his shattered self to the nearest body, regurgitating blood-tinged yellow bile along the way. With much difficulty, he removes the dead soldier’s dog tags and places his own on the ground next to the sniper victim. The dead soldier is now Jim Wilson and Jim is instantaneously transformed into Brandon Smith. He can already hear the distant “whomp-whomp-whomp” of an American chopper getting closer. His platoon buddies will swear Jim Wilson was killed by sniper fire that day. The chopper finds him and his fallen comrades in the last hour of light.

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