He sits with the wounded man.
The elderly person speaks only Czech, reveals that he is older only after taking off his hat carefully so as to not reopen the gash beside his left eye.
Just hours before the two of them fought side-by-side. Now he sits fading in and out of consciousness. The two sit side-by-side on the couch back at one of the safehouses.
Sons of bitches – he repeats this over and over, rattling through pneumonia. The only words he learned in English upon meeting the small group of "bandits" (so named by their European counterparts, Czech and Ukrainian.) He drove the truck that was filled with automatic weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
After the mine exploded, hurling the truck to its side and then down a muddied embankment, it had taken a few of them some time to find him and get him to a vehicle and out of sight before being shot at.
He tightens the wounded man's tourniquet hoping they can save the leg. He cusses and apologizes. There's nothing else to be done but to groan with him.
They all drink heavily. The men outside smoke cigarettes and spit into puddles as the rain pours down the ruddy streets. Bombs fall in the distance. How can they still hear them so far from the decimated cities?
They hear the man inside, his anguish.
Sons of bitches.
No comments:
Post a Comment