death of a private
"But I'm still here," she muses, her voice barely a rasp. The shot glass rolls dangerously close to the edge of the table, but she sets it upright before it can shatter onto the wood. Drunk, but not too drunk. Not drunk enough to go beyond her limits. I watch quietly as she closes a little more into herself, places her head in her hands. Sighs. And then she's leveling me with a gaze I hadn't expected to be so sharp, muttering over the hum of the bar, and I find myself leaning in to make out the words.
"That book," she repeats, louder this time. There's enough irritation in her tone to root me to the spot. "The one about the apocalypse. You still have it, don't you?"
I'm not sure what she's talking about, but I nod anyway. She crinkles her nose.
"You know what I'm talking about, private. That book, that stupid, science fiction or whatever you call it --" She trails off, throwing her hands in the air, and I wish I'd actually said something. Made something up, maybe, just to do something other than try to comfort her. The liquor hasn't slurred her words yet, but it's getting there. "You know what? I don't know. Just thought you'd want to go on and on about it like you usually do. Be a hell of a lot better than the bullshit we've been through."
There's another glass in front of her suddenly, and she wraps her fingers around it before I can reach. Doesn't knock it back like she'd done to the first five, though, just sort of cradles it as she stares into the amber liquid. Wordless. The bloodstains on her uniform have long dried, the gashes on her neck just barely forming a raw pink -- but the expression on her face is the same as it had been that day. Except that she's not frozen in horror, covered in her squadron's remains, and there is no bomb, no ambush, no wound. I'm the one dragging her to the medics -- but not the one who made it out -- and there is no novel clutched to her chest as she panics uselessly, too delirious by the blood loss. The doctors had taken it away the moment they sedated her. All for the best, of course. It was probably too bloodstained to read anymore.
She smiles mirthlessly, righting the medals at her breast. "Almost as if I were rejected by death himself," she says, flat-voiced. Cold. "That was the last line, wasn't it? You were -- you were reading off the last page, I told you to shut up, and you told me you'd always keep your promise. That you'd never let anything happen to me, ever, and I --"
She pauses. Thinks for a moment. But she knows, and I know, and my hand passes through hers as easily as air.
I'm still here, she wants to say. Shouldn't you be, too?