The Lost Journal of Private Kenji Yoshida

by James Harden

High Speed.

  It gets a little hazy here.

  But this is what I remember.

  It’s starting to come back to me – little bits and pieces. I was feeling weird and dizzy. At first I thought I must’ve inhaled a large amount of smoke. And the smoke must’ve been way more toxic than I initially thought.

  But the real reason I was feeling so damn weird?

  The doctor had hooked me up to a bottle of nitrous oxide in his haste, instead of oxygen.

  I was tripping out.

  It was surreal, like I was having an out of body experience.

  I wasn’t even scared of being blown up at that point. I was more concerned with Drake. He was hurt. He was in bad shape.

  I remembered I’d given him some morphine. And I’m pretty sure the doctor had given him some morphine as well. So he was well and truly out of it.

  Imagine my surprise when he started talking to me.

  I remember the Humvee ride was a bumpy one but I didn’t seem to care. The speed we were travelling at was definitely not safe for the narrow laneways but again, I didn’t seem to care.

  I focused on my breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Just like the doctor said.

  I looked over at Drake and the other men. The pilots.  And I wondered if they were going to die.

  I wondered whether or not there should be someone in here besides me just in case these critically injured soldiers decide to flat line or something. Would I be able to resuscitate them if I needed to?

  “I don’t think they’re too worried about us dying.” Drake said.

  “Huh? What?”

  “I said, I don’t think they’re too worried about us dying. As a matter of fact, I don’t think they’re even taking us to the hospital.”

  I looked over at Drake again. My vision was blurry. I couldn’t see him clearly. But it looked like his leg was bleeding heavily from the bullet wound and the bite wound. “I…I thought you were asleep. We pumped you full of morphine.”

  “Yeah, I am asleep. You’re having a psychotic episode, genius. You’re hallucinating.”

  “What?”

  “And I don’t think that’s oxygen you’re sucking on.”

  I followed the tube from my face mask to the blue bottle it was connected to. On the little pressure gauge on top of the bottle it read: NO2 - Nitrous oxide.

  AKA - happy gas.

  I took another deep breath. In and out.  Just like the doctor said.

  I should’ve been scared. I should’ve been terrified that we were about to be blown up and vaporized. But I wasn’t scared at all. I was as high as a kite in a hurricane.

  I should’ve taken the mask off.

  But then Drake spoke again. “Leave it on. You might as well enjoy these last few minutes of your life.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “You really think we’re going to get out of here alive? You think we can outrun those jets screaming their way towards us faster than the speed of sound? You do realize that it took us ten minutes to drive from the entrance of the slum to where they dropped us off. I’m no mathematical genius but even if we’re driving at sixty miles per hour right now we’re still not gonna make it.”

  “Shut up Drake. We’ll make it.”

  I felt like I was trying to convince myself more than anyone.

  “And just what the hell did you mean by they’re not taking us to the hospital?”

  “Open your eyes, Kenji. It’s over. We’ve lost control. The virus is spreading faster than they can contain it. Do you really think they’re going to take us all in and patch us all up? I’ve been bitten. I’m infected. Do you think the medic hasn’t radioed ahead and informed them of our situation? If we get out of here, and trust me, that’s a big ‘if’, they’re not going to risk taking us into the hospital, they’re not going to risk another outbreak over me, a lowly grunt. I’m as good as dead. You shoulda saved me the trouble when you had the chance.”

  “You’re wrong. They’ll take us in. They’ll get us fixed. We don’t even know that you’re infected.”

  “Doesn’t matter if I’m not infected. Easier to get rid of me. Safer. Sacrifice the few to save the many.”

  Gordon’s words coming out of Drake’s mouth. Would they really kill us?

  “Yeah they would. They got bigger problems to worry about now.”

  “Bigger? Like what?”

  “Like making sure no one finds out about this unholy mess. Like making sure this virus doesn’t spread out of the desert to any of the cities. The only way to make sure that happens is to blow this place up. And what do you think they are hiding out in the Woomera military testing site? Whatever it is, I bet they’ll do anything to stop it from getting out. This air strike is just the beginning. You think a couple of soldiers are going to change their mind? Hell, you think a few thousand refugees are going to change their minds?”

  Damn it, Drake. He had it all figured out. Maybe being on death’s door made it easier for him to see the grim reality of it. Maybe I knew it all along as well. Maybe I was just too scared to admit it, to say it out loud.

  The other day when Franco was bitten, I looked to the east and thought of running away. Maybe I still could. Maybe. If I got out of this slum alive, if we survived the air strike I could get out of here. I could warn Rebecca before it’s too late.

  “Yeah that’s a great plan. Again, not that you’re going to get out of this slum alive, but let’s just say hypothetically you do make it out of here. Where are you going to go? How are you going to survive? You’ll end up infected. Just like me. Just like these poor refugees. Oh, you think you’ll run away? Run all the way to Sydney and warn Rebecca? How are you going to do that? How are you going to make it that far? Have you thought this through at all? And what is she going say to you when you get there? You think she’s going to welcome you in with open arms and give you a big hug? You’re a goner. You should never have joined the marines. You’re not a warrior. You never will be. You’re a coward. A lying coward. Not that it matters anymore what you are. Because in a couple of minutes you’re a dead man. Just like me. Just like the rest of us.”

  “Shut up, Drake.”

  At that moment the Humvee ran over a pothole or a ditch or maybe even a crowd of people and my ass momentarily left the seat. Maybe it was the first missiles of the air strike.

  I don’t know what it was.

  But the ride was a bumpy one. The speed the Humvee was travelling at was not safe for the narrow laneways.

  The Humvee swerved and I was thrown back in my seat. The tires screeched and the brakes locked up. The Humvee spun out of control and I lost all sense of direction. Left or right, up or down. I had no idea what was happening. I didn’t know where I was. The only thing I knew for certain was that Drake was shot, bitten, bleeding. He was dying right in front of me but he was one hundred percent right about everything.