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The war
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“More of this damn rain and mist. I’ve been flying through it for two hours”, he thought in that loud mental voice way that scares you because you don’t really know later if you said it or just thought it. He tried to look out the windows over the pilot’s head but the running beads of water streak them as the wind pushes them in a broken glass pattern. Hunched over on the aluminum floor of the helicopter, he grabs his knees and pulls then closer as if that could stop the moisture and the wet air blowing in the opened side door from seeping into his body. “Why didn’t I take more time to grab some clothes, at least a raincoat? These cloths are two days old. It will be all worth it. I’m getting there first. I hope they are right. No ones gotten in or out in three days.” He looked up again this time between the pilot and copilot, out the front windshield of the helicopter through the windshield wipers towards [the sunlight and] what he hoped is a clearing sky. “Stopping for that raincoat may have cost me the flights.” The wind pushed the last of the water off the windows. There is the sun. As the helicopter turned towards the clear sky, he looked down and saw a mist hanging near the ground that low to the ground misty fog that encases this country. The ‘copter did a sudden, violent turn with the rotor blades beating a straining pitch; broke over the tree line and dove towards the ground. The airstrip sloped down towards the North away from the compound to a circular perimeter of bunkers and artillery firing positions. He could see a few people slowly moving around. A small group was walking towards the rubber trees on the far side of the runway. A blast of hot moist air rushed into the compartment as the helicopter idled down. “You need to un-ass, sir,” the door gunner shouted. “We’re not staying .” He walked down the hill towards the perimeter, looking to his right at the compound then to his left into the rubber trees but he couldn’t see the small group he saw from the air. It isn’t the low ground mist that encases the country. It smells. A sickening, sweet and acrid smell is what it is that is smoky more than wet and misty. Further down the slopping hill he saw the small group he saw from the air walking slowly deeper into the rubber trees. Sometimes they would stop and disappear from sight then slowly one by one as if attached by some invisible wire they would reappear. The place was quiet, eerily so, with everything muffled even the rotor blades of the helicopter he arrived on. There was no sound. No movement except for that small group performing that strange ritual deeper now in the rubber trees. The smell is thicker, burning the nostrils and turning the stomach in that dry heave, morning after the night before, way that too much booze and not enough sleep penetrates the body with a chill that shouldn’t be there[ because it is hot]. There are more people moving now in slow shuffling walks but still no sound except for the whine of the helicopter’s turbine engine as it labors in the hot, humid air before takeoff. They seem to be sleepwalking, wandering aimlessly but with a strange purpose as they bend over slowly, deliberately and fumble with the ground, searching for who knows what in the close to the ground smoke that is choking the area. The perimeter is shapeless, not the perfect circle it was from the air, as he gets closer. The ‘I’ve been had’ thoughts begin racing through his mind. Once again ‘HAD’ in capital letters by the bar fly congregation of the Saigon press corps. ‘There’s a story up there but they don’t pay me enough for that one. My source over at MACV said…’trailing off as the attention turns to where the waitress is to order another round.
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Paper Information
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Title: The war
Words: 3371
Rating: None
Pages: 13.5
submitted by: rnc1313
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