“I’m sorry, I hope that didn’t cause you any trouble,” he said.
“That is the first time they have seen soda in real life before.”
“In real life?”
“I mean, they have seen all kinds of things in old magazines, but the luxury of soda has not been a priority in their lives so far.”
He nodded his understanding.
“Can I get you tea to have with dinner?” Larmina asked.
“Yes, thanks.”
He watched as Larmina took the pot from the stove top and poured two cups. Taking one of the cups, he then followed her into the dining area. The children had already taken their seats upon the floor; all of them sipping at their soda in apparent bliss. Each of them seemed to be a miniature version of their mother. With their flowing curls and dark skin, their emerald eyes never ceased to smile.
“Your children. They’re so happy,” he said, as he took a seat and enjoyed the scent of the many dishes spread out before him.
“They are happy to be home. They are happy I am home. My mother has been taking care of them while I was away. She is a hard woman.”
“She must be a good woman to have taken care of them and to let you become an officer.”
Larmina’s smile faded a little as she answered, “She is not so happy about me becoming an officer. But she accepts my choice.”
As they ate and chatted, he tried to remember when he’d last enjoyed a family meal. He couldn’t. This felt good; sitting with regular people, eating regular food, enjoying regular conversation. He missed the routine. The evening meal had been a mandatory ceremony that he’d taken for granted as a boy. Now, it seemed strange to him that the value of such a thing could only be appreciated while revisiting the routine in such a faraway country. He silently made a bargain with himself that when he got back home, he would eat dinner with his family whenever the opportunity presented itself.
As course after course of the meal went down, one by one the children became tired and were taken to their room to sleep. Before he knew it, two hours had passed and he and Larmina were left alone.
“They are exhausted,” she said, as she took a seat again.
“They need their sleep,” he said.
She smiled. “What is it like in your country? What is it like in New Zealand?”
He smiled back. “What is it like? Some parts of it look much the same as here. We have mountains. Not so high, but we do have mountains.”
“But no war?”
He thought for a moment. “Not like here,” he said. “We have struggles, much the same as many countries do. But we haven’t had war for over a hundred and fifty years.”
She sighed. “It seems to me that all we have had here is war over the past one hundred and fifty years.”
“That will change. In time, there will always be peace.”
“You really believe that?”
He could see the sadness in her as she spoke. He couldn’t even imagine her feelings on the subject. But despite his inner doubts, he did his best to project positivity. “I do,” he said. “I really do believe that.”
Soon, they began to move the dishes to the kitchen area for cleaning. As they did so, a silence settled. This wasn’t an uncomfortable silence; more like a silent conversation unfolding between them–a cosmic negotiation of souls. He found himself reveling in the silence; wanting it to last. A warmth hung in the air unlike any he’d ever experienced. He wanted to fold that warmth around him and curl up in it for eternity. Was that possible? He wished it was.
As they passed by each other on their travels to and from the kitchen, He noticed that time and time again, she made no effort to avoid their touching. And as he carried the last of the dishes into the kitchen, they met in the doorway. Here, they had no choice but to turn sideways in order to pass each other. Here, he found himself pausing to face her.
She mirrored the pause.
Facing her, only inches away, he breathed in her scent. He suddenly found that he couldn’t take his eyes from hers. Her emerald eyes had him, as if they were two miniature whirlpools sucking him in to an unknown end.
Before he knew what was happening, the distance between them closed. Their lips came together and he lost himself in the moment. The empty dish fell from his hand as he put his arms around her and pulled her close. She melted into him.
He had no idea how long they stayed like that in the doorway. It did not matter. Time had no place in this world. This world had only one force and he totally submitted to it.
Hours later, as they lay naked, exposed to the heat of the night, he found he still couldn’t take his eyes from her, even as she slept. Her long, dark curls cascaded around the olive skin of her shoulders, framing her face. The result was a work of art that an impressionist master would have had trouble replicating. They’d made love countless times and still he wanted more.
The sudden sound of helicopter blades punching at the night air tugged him back toward reality. By the sound of the blades, he could tell that the chopper was a Chinook. He guessed that it would be returning to the American base after a routine night patrol. This meant that dawn wasn’t too far away. He knew he had broken curfew. He should have been back on base hours ago. But he did not care. He would deal with the consequences later. Nothing was going to take this moment from him. Denying a man oxygen would have been easier.
Soon after the sound of the blades vanished into the distance, new noises took their place. A dog barked somewhere. An infant cried. The first bird greeted the coming day with its song. But it was the sound of door hinges creaking that grabbed his attention most.
For a moment, he thought it would be best to ignore the door. Noise had a funny way of travelling in the silence of the morning. A neighbor may just be leaving for work. And besides, his attention was needed elsewhere. His loins stirred once more. The break from their lovemaking had been long enough. He would return his attention to Larmina; disappear again into her arms and greet the day the way a day should be greeted.
Footsteps in the hallway changed the course of his fantasy in an instant. They weren’t the hurried feet of children in search of their mother. These steps reeked of a different agenda. His soldier’s ear could tell so. They were the footsteps of men and he judged there was at least four of them.
He wasted no time. He slid off the bed and strode to where his clothing and sidearm lay on the floor. Pulling the pistol from its holster, he racked a round and moved toward the bedroom door. He eased the door open and stepped into the hallway, but as he did so, something flashed out of nowhere toward his head. A lightning bolt of pain shot through his brain and he fell into darkness.
* * * * *
The sound of screaming woke Ed. Pain followed. His forehead felt as if an icepick had hit it and remained lodged there. He ignored the pain as best as could and tried to make sense of his surroundings. This proved difficult. His left eyelid could barely open. Something had stuck it in place. He guessed that dried blood had a hand in that effect.
Dried blood. What did that mean? How long did it take for blood to dry?
He tried to raise a hand to rub his eye clear, but he immediately discovered that he’d been bound to Larmina’s bed.
More screams screeched through the walls. He couldn’t tell if the screams were from Larmina or from one of the children. The distortion in the noise made it likely that it could have been either. He couldn’t imagine what was worse. He had to help them.
Through his good eye, he examined his bindings as best as he could. A plastic zip tie had been threaded around the heavy timber of a bedpost. The post was a good four inches thick. The was no breaking it. The zip ties, on the other hand, were another story.
Remembering his training, he moved onto his knees and pushed his torso as close as possible to the bedpost. Using his teeth, he took the tail of the zip tie and pulled it tight around his wrists. Without pause, he stretched his arms out in front of him, took a deep breath and then jerked his hands toward hi
s abdomen as hard as he could. Instantly, the back of the zip tie’s locking head snapped off and his hands broke free. He could barely believe it. Doing this during training had been one thing, but during a hostage situation was quite another.
Ignoring the pain in his wrists, he rubbed the blood from his eye as best as he could and looked around the room. His clothing was gone. So was his sidearm. Whatever he was going to do, he was going to have to do it naked and unarmed.
Another scream of distress forced his caution aside. He moved to the door and flung it open. It opened directly into the living area. No one was there. He instantly realized that whatever was happening was happening in the kitchen.
Scanning the living area for weapons, he again found nothing of value. But he did find his clothing draped over the back of a wooden chair in one corner.
Pulling on his trousers, he made his way through the living area to the door leading to the kitchen. Here, he found the back of a man dressed in Taliban clothing, blocking his path.
His first reaction told him to leap at the fighter. He’d seen firsthand what the Taliban did to woman and children before. The very thought of what they were now doing to Larmina and her children terrified him toward action. Yet he hesitated. He remained rooted to the spot, feeling helpless in every sense of the word.
Precious minutes passed as the screaming continued. He forced his limbs into motion and began searching the living area for weapons again. He came up with nothing more than a heavy clay bowl. It would have to do. If he were lucky, he would be able to knock the first fighter out with the bowl and get his weapon before the others reacted.
Bowl in hand, he turned back to the door leading to the kitchen. But instead of the back of an unsuspecting Taliban fighter, he found the muzzle of an AK-47 pointed at him. The eyes behind the gun showed no shock, only an empty hatred.
The fighter yelled words that Ed didn’t understand. The muzzle of the rifle poked into his chest, pushing him back into the living area. He expected a bullet to take him at any second. Words came instead, firing at him like invisible ammunition. And although he didn’t understand, he obeyed, rendered helpless by the onslaught.
Moments later, three more fighters filed in behind their comrade. All of them looked angry, fierce, ready to kill and ready to love doing so.
This is it, he thought. Surely, this is the end. He would now endure whatever fate had befallen Larmina and her girls.
All of the fighters yelled at him now. All pointed their rifles at him. He shuffled backwards until he came up against a wall. Unable to retreat any further, he remained there, looking, listening, waiting.
The shot never came. Instead, one by one, the fighters made an exit until eventually he was alone once more. The roar of an engine outside and the sound of dirt-spitting from tires told him they weren’t coming back any time soon. Apparently, they weren’t interested in him.
He could barely believe his luck. A tsunami of relief washed over him. He would live. But why?
The relief soon evaporated as the sounds of the screaming returned to the forefront of his reality. Hysterical described the noise best. Only someone on the edge of insanity could scream like that.
Fresh fear escalated inside of him as he stepped toward the entrance to the kitchen again. Half of him didn’t want to go inside for fear of what he’d see. The other half pushed him into motion.
Motion won the tug of war and he stepped forward.
Naked, blood covered and beaten, Larmina stood over the kitchen table with a kitchen knife raised high in the air. He was just in time to see the knife plunge toward the table top. He remained immobilized as the blade plunged twice more, each plunge accompanied by a blood curdling wail of agony.
In the time it took him to realize what was happening, Larmina had stabbed all three of her children to death. He remained riveted to the spot, rendered catatonic by her actions. His eyes were the only part of him still able to move. They drifted back and forth, from the children on the table and then to the still screaming Larmina.
Blood spilled over the edges of the table, pouring onto the floor. The bare flesh of the children bled. Acid had been poured over their bodies; an infamous specialty of the Taliban.
Like a flower in the dying afterglow of its bloom, some last piece of innocence shriveled inside of him in that moment. And as his insides contracted into a molten core of darkness, Larmina lifted the blade again. With one last wail at the Hell the world had become, she thrust the knife into her chest.
Any remaining life vanished from his legs. He collapsed onto the floor.
* * * * *
Present day…
“Jesus!” Ron said, as Ed finished his story. “I had no idea.”
“You’re the first person I’ve ever told…” Ed said.
“So that’s how the LG ended up at the receiving end of your fist?”
“That happened a few days later. He came by the barracks one evening to check on me. I’d been drinking. He chose the wrong time to give me a pep talk.”
“Pep talk?”
“He said that he didn’t know why I was so upset about the death of a few more sand monkeys.”
“Jesus!”
“I loved her, Ron. I’ve never loved a woman in my life, but I loved her. It lasted all of one evening before it was torn away from me. And to have some upstart LG insult her and her children like that…”
“I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing,” Ron said.
“And now you can see. I can never go back.”
“Maybe… …Maybe,” Ron said, nodding slowly.
“Don’t worry about me. I have my drinking under control. I just need a little more time to sort my mind out.”
“You’re hiding from what happened.”
“She was so beautiful. Her children were so perfect. Why would anyone want to destroy them?” he said, tears now freely flowing down his cheeks.
“Take it from me, suffering is just another part of this world. Trying to make some sense of it will never do you any good. That much I do know.”
“That’s just it. There is no sense to it. And if there is no sense to it, why should I have to endure it sober?”
“Because there’s a lot of living to do for you yet. That’s why. And your body won’t hold out for much longer if you keep up this routine of yours.”
“I’m not afraid to die.”
“That’s because you’re not dying yet. I, on the other hand, have an inside perspective of that line of knowledge. And besides, there are worse things than dying.”
“Like what?”
“Like endless suffering.”
“I already endlessly suffer. I live and breathe suffering.”
“That’s not entirely true. You’ve slept more than half an hour at a time over the past year, haven’t you?” Ron asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you able to eat a full meal without wanting to vomit?”
“Yes.”
“Can take a crap without an enema?”
“Yes… Of course.”
“And are you perpetually enduring, soul sucking, physical pain from sun up to sundown?”
“No,” Ed admitted.
“Then you’re not really suffering. But if you keep doing what you’re doing, your liver will eventually shut down. Then you’ll wind up here in a bed, just like me. And you’ll be begging for death long before it comes for you. That much I can guarantee.”
The vivid description of Ed’s future dried his tears. And he knew he’d been gifted with a brief insight into Ron’s daily struggle. “Is that how you feel?” he asked.
“Suffering wise?”
“No, I mean begging for death wise. Is that how you feel? Is that what you want?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want.”
“It does matter. You’re my brother and I love you. I don’t want to see you suffering so much.”
“I’m dying. The journey to finishing line has no set time. I have no choice but
to endure.”
“Are you so sure about that?”
“I’m sure.”
Ed could see that the look in Ron’s eyes didn’t reflect the message in his words. But he didn’t argue with him.
They chatted for a few more minutes. However, by the time Ed left, all he could think about was getting back to The Office.
He ran directly into an outbreak of activity as he stepped out of Ron’s room. He was just in time to see a bed burst out from another door and charge down the hallway with nurses and doctors surrounding it. The desperation of the scene made it obvious that whoever lay in the bed wasn’t in great shape.
He took a moment to wonder what the big deal was? If the patients here were all terminally ill, then why fuss around trying to keep them alive? The absurdity of the whole situation spurred him toward the exit. He really did need a drink.
He kept pace behind the bed and the hospice staff as they charged down the hallway. The men in suits were still standing at the reception as he passed by. They looked hard at the victim on the bed and then hard at Ed. He stared back. He didn’t give in one bit. He didn’t understand what their accusing glares meant and he didn’t really care. The Office awaited. Getting back there now took precedence over everything else.
CHAPTER 9
“You’re late,” Jena said.
Ed glanced at his watch while she set up the glasses. She was right. He was twenty minutes behind schedule. No wonder he was feeling so edgy.
“Busy afternoon,” he said as he slid onto his bar stool.
“How is he?”
He downed the shot of whiskey and placed the empty glass back on the bar. “He’s not good,” he said.
She poured another shot. “Pain?”
“He was sweating bullets when I got there. He looks like a white version of one of those emaciated children you see on TV; the ones starving to death in third-world countries.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I hope he won’t suffer for much longer.”
THE LIFE LEFT: A GRIPPING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER Page 9