The Box (standard:drama, 1175 words)
Author: Kinslayer	Added: Aug 16 2003	Views/Reads: 3411/2350	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A soldier in a war no one knows of.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

The guide remained on the ground, ears covered and muttering something
that could have been a prayer. The smell of the dead wafted through the 
hot jungle air and seemed to linger right under everyone's noses. A few 
men vomited while the rest watched. 

The sergeant gave the orders, “You may advance.” 

As they did, the two villagers turned, both with panicked looks on their
faces. We paused, knelt and took aim as the two men fumbled at their 
wastes. Instead of pulling up guns or knives, they pulled out some sort 
of roots. Each bit into one and both turned back to their families and 
fell over. 

Poison, that's what happened to the villagers, they were poisoning
themselves. Nausea hit Mike, and he joined the other two men vomiting 
in the bushes. It disgusted him, the idea that people would poison 
themselves to prevent being caught. It made him question what he was 
doing there, even more then before. He had always liked to think of 
himself as one of the good guys, but maybe it was deeper then that, 
maybe there was no good guy. Again Michael threw up, this time dry 
heaving. As he finished he heard the Sergeant, 

“Lets go men.” 

The guide stood up and led them back to the village. They all stood on
the beach in single file and boarded the boat. Sergeant Douglass was 
getting a head count and consoling the soldiers one at a time. Only ten 
of soldiers died that day. No one bothered to count the villagers. At 
one point a man brought up the fact that it is possible someone was 
alive behind the bodies. 

The Sergeant replied, “Anyone who has to dig themselves out of a pile of
dead bodies deserves to be left alone.” 

As the line got shorter Michael Dillon got closer to Sergeant Douglass,
when they stood face to face, Michael being the last one there Douglass 
asked, “Is there anything I can do for you Mike.” 

Mike thought, “Send me home.” And he started to cry. 

Kevin Douglass gave Mike a firm hug. “Done,” he replied, “done.” 

Mike got to see his daughter again, he got to watch her grow up and go
to college, which was more then could be said of that girl who would 
never get to live her life. He was nineteen then, now is fifty-two and 
an investment banker. He has his own office on the corner of a 
five-story building. He busies himself with work and never takes time 
to think about that day in Kumbakale, but he keeps the music box 
sitting on a bookshelf in the corner. When people ask him about it he 
tells them, “It's a reminder that there is no good or evil.” And if you 
press the subject, he throws you out of his office. 

The end. 


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