LEE (standard:drama, 864 words)
Author: GXD	Added: Aug 22 2007	Views/Reads: 3353/0	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Twenty-five years of unforgiving memory behind every hot dog and coffee.

LEE 

Slowly, very slowly, Lee opened one eye.  No sound.  Nothing moved. It
was all over.  Lee waited, carefully opening the other eye.  He looked 
around without moving his head, reaching out with his ears to a 
deafening silence.  His worst fears began to abate.  Pins and needles 
pricked his left shoulder.  It was uncomfortable.  The stench of burnt 
meat was in his nostrils and bitter vomit fouled his parched mouth. 
Something wet splashed on his cheek, rolled down the corner of his 
mouth and moistened his lips.  A curious gushing sense of relief washed 
through his body.  He almost smiled; the warm, wet felt good as it 
spread to his tongue.  Lee tried to swallow, but choked a little, 
instead, spitting out broken pieces and thick, half-dried blood. 

Another drop fell, wetting his face.  He tried turning his head, to
catch the next one, but his neck was rigid.  He pushed harder and 
managed to move a little.  A long time passed.  Then another drop fell 
on his lips.  Lee felt hot, exhausted, but aware he was still 
breathing.  His body was somewhere down below, but he felt nothing 
except an annoying prickle in his arm.  For a moment, he almost drifted 
off to sleep. 

Then a thought struck him: he was alive! 

After awhile, his tongue probed the toothless cavity where two cyanide
capsuled were embedded in the gum.  They were intact: he was not meant 
to die.  Lee's arm hurt now, he noticed, but he also felt a scorpion 
scrambling across his scalp -- a new pain he had not felt before. 
Another drop of water refreshed his lips.  They were sticky, bloody. He 
tried to whisper.  A rasping sound surprised his ear.  Slowly he drew 
breath and coughed, clearing his throat.  It shook his body and a 
stabbing pain lanced his shoulder, but he kept silent.  The silence 
echoed painfully from everywhere.  Perhaps it was safe.  Perhaps not. 
Another drop.  And after a time, another.  And another.  Lee timed the 
interval between drops and caught them on his tongue this time.  He 
swallowed gratefully. 

Lee moved his head and sat up.  He felt the warm, wet mess between his
legs, then lightning seared his arm as the nerves came alive.  An awful 
scream came from somewhere, insulting his ears, tearing at his throat.  
It was his voice.  For a while after that he was very quiet, stifling 
the moans exploding inside him.  Still no sound.  The silence was 
reassuring.  He lay back again.  From time to time a drop fell and he 
caught most of them. 

It was not dark, he realized, but it might be soon enough. What to do?
What to do?  Distress magnified his pain. He twisted in torment, dimly 
remembering to return at every moment to catch another drop.  Where was 
the water coming from?  Was anyone alive?  Was it the missile (whose 
brief shriek he recalled) that caused this?   Was the enemy coming?  If 
he played dead, would they cut his throat anyway? 

Lee's head was clearing now, beneath the searing pain that ringed his
skull.  With his other hand, he reached up and felt for hair.  There 
was only bone and sticky, ragged edges; his scalp was gone.  Steeling 
himself against the growing, throbbing shoulder, he doubled his legs 
and rolled over, slowly pulling himself upright against the earthen 
wall.  It was just low enough for him to see over, where the water came 
from.  A canteen lay on its side, and he watched as a droplet formed on 
the lip of its loose stopper.  It touched the earth and dripped down 
the wall, where he had fallen.  A parallel trickle of blood flowed from 
a crumpled corpse, like a stream of lava. 

The figure beyond the wall was unrecognizable.  Lee could not remember
who had been there.  The baby, of course, was nowhere to be seen. 
Ragged strips of yellow uniform were embedded in the dirt. 

Where was his mother?  Where were his sisters?  Where was the hut, the
two goats, the old wheelbarrow?  Pots and pans lay everywhere, 
shattered, dented.  He knew, somehow, that his brother had not gone for 
help.  A lifeless body lay draped over the cart yoke.  It was his 
father.  Slowly, Lee took this all in, as the pain became unbearable. 

*  *  * 

Lee popped a hot-dog in the microwave, as Amtrak's Coast Starlight
barreled down the tracks toward Salem.  An impatient customer stood 
waiting, tapping the tip jar.  A coffee cup leaked on the stainless 
counter, leaving a little pool of yellow, like the shreds of uniform. 
The memory and the feelings came back to Lee often, as they had for the 
past 25 years.  Sometimes they lasted an instant; sometimes all night, 
when he couldn't sleep.  It was over, yet it wasn't over. 

The microwave beeped.  The train rattled and jiggled; a little coffee
spilled again.  With his good arm, he packed the hot goodies in a 
cardboard box, wiped the counter, took the money and gave change in 
silence.  The still figure -- with its detached hand tightly gripping 
the canteen -- had been his mother. 

Seattle, Washington September 11, 1997 Gerald X. Diamond


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