I’m in the process of writing a novel, called Back into the Sand, about Sergeant Christopher Scott DeHaven and Warren Jacobs, soldiers in the Iraqi war. These are short excerpts from the story…
~
“Are you still having suicidal thoughts?” The doctor didn’t look up from my file.
“No.” I didn’t want to spend the rest of my days locked in the VA hospital playing checkers alone.
“What about the nightmares?” Still he kept his focus on the papers in front of him.
“Yes.” Every night. I had them every night.
He looked up. “Well, Warren, you have post traumatic stress from what you’ve told me.” He paused and made a note. Leaning forward in mock concern, he spoke in the low voice they all learned specifically to deal with the patients they had little interest in. “Tell me about your last dream. You mentioned you had memories of a specific soldier.” He shuffled through some papers. “A Sergeant you came in contact with in Iraq.”
Came in contact. How nice he put it that way. Contact. Moron. I wasn’t about to tell him anything I’d been through over there.
“I came in contact with a lot of sergeants.” And I still remembered each and every face. Remembered their dying words, conversations between a medic and his patient.
The doctor sighed. “Yes, I read that. You saw action, quite a bit. Says here you have some hearing loss from an explosion.”
“Yeah, it was a mortar.”
I still heard it some days, ringing in my ears then deafness. They got off a lucky shot that day and hit us with one. One. Boom.
~
The Devil leaned back in his chair and took a long drag on his cigarette. “Why did you come here, Chris?”
“I’m not sure. Shit I’m not even sure how I got here.”
A scream ripped by behind the Devil and Chris flinched. He couldn’t stay here, not with all this noise.
“Did that bitch behind the glass send you here?” He let the smoke trail out his nostrils.
Chris thought for a moment, she hadn’t technically sent him anywhere he managed to stumble upon.
“No, I just ended up here.”
“Well. Should you be here? What I mean is do you deserve fiery damnation for all eternity for the things you’ve done in your twenty eight years walking the earth?”
“Christ, no.”
Chris watched him put the cigarette to his lips again. He wanted a drag. But having the nerve to even speak to the devil was enough. He wasn’t about to share a smoke with the Prince of Darkness.
The Devil laughed. “Lord’s name in vain. I remember a time when people sent themselves here for that minor trespass.”
“Sent themselves?”
The Devil leaned forward. “Yes, Chris. Sent themselves. Did you really think that so called god of yours would grant you free will over your life and not your death?” He snubbed out his cigarette. “You humans have no concept of the power lurking just beyond that paper thin skull do you.”
Chris wasn’t sure how to answer. He sure didn’t feel power behind his eyes. All he’d felt lately was complete helplessness.
“Want a beer?”
“You have beer here?” Chris was shocked.
“The is Hell, kiddo, not Iraq.”
