Stranded

CW: Physical violence, mental health

He watches the saliva dry sticky on the barrel, a pronounced bead on the front sight starlike from the lurid glare above. Colm sits on the warships tight rectangular toilet, the yellow walls battling the bright white of the roof light to make a perfect beige concealing the stains of piss over the walls but not the smell. Three heavy bangs sound on the door seeming to shake the whole toilet.

"Colm!, Quit wanking and get out I need a shit."

Colm jumped out of his torpor and stuffed the gun down his trousers, flushed the small toilet and scuffled out, passing the knocker, Jamie, who leered at him in on his way by slamming the toilet door shut behind him. He continues down the tight hall feeling claustrophobic.

The lights of the berth are already off when he enters, the many beds filled with the sleeping soldiers makes it look like a tomb, Colm looks around at the bodies and his chest tightens with the feeling like he's having some kind of oracular vision, all his comrades dead, their semi-synchronized breathing sounding like an out of sight cremator burning them to ash. Not being able to bring himself to lie down with the dead he leaves, passing Jamie in the hall out to the deck.

He leans on the railing starboard watching the horizon. black sky merges with the blacker sea, only a different colour by half a hue. For two years he has been from his home in Britain, now stationed in the pacific ocean near Japan sent to fight in a war he has no clue what for. He remembers his father fought in a war twenty maybe twenty one years ago and wonders if his own son will fight in a war too, maybe the same one, maybe he wont live to have a son. He remembers putting the pistol in his mouth not an hour ago and shames himself. But he knows he will do it again and again and again.

While Deep in thought a pinpoint of flame lights ahead of him, the sky now distinguishable from sea in the small orange light, as he stares hypnotised it grows to the size of a fingernail, easing larger in immensity by the second. In his sight the lit dark he tried seeing into moments before is easily ignored with all focus to the glow. He thinks of when he was younger in church, the priest slamming his fist down on his old leather bible, the cover the texture of a dead man not risen. He yelled about the return of the God, the flaming sword he will bring with him and Colm believes he see’s it now. His theory is vindicated for him as horns blare all around. Horns! he thought, Father Reilly always said there would be trumpets played. For the first time since his conscription he was filled with joy, a weight gone from his chest replaced by euphoria then spread to every extremity. Both hands outstretched he stepped closer to the bolted stanchions lined along the edges of the deck like a preacher giving praise.

He is ripped violently from the episode of supernaturalism by his crew-mate Allan who tackles him to the ground screaming, shaking Colm to get inside but as soon as Colm understands that the flaming sword of the Lord is a Japanese missile sent to sink the ship it has already stabbed deep into stern side and shakes the whole boat. Another missile lands seconds after from another direction and he attempts to stand. A third missile. Colm loses his balance slipping headfirst into one of the cold iron poles blocking a fall from the steep edge of the deck into the ocean. He is out instantly.

A hypnagogic daze in the first hour of dawn. There's no fog in the air but all around him visible wisps of air gesticulate around his head. Bright orange in the bottom of his vision glistens. The last thing he remembers was an orange sparkle in the air coming toward him then his passing out, now he bobs up and down on a bright orange vessel, the same shade as the one in the air and he makes his connection. It came to get him and whisk him away from the war, he extends a slow hand out to touch the orange saviour in thanks like one would a horse until its disturbed by the grabbing of his wrist.

"He's awake!, Colm?, Colm?"

The slippery rims of the bright orange lifeboat come into focus now, the wisps replaced by a blue sky and a crystal ocean. Four other soldiers sit in the raft staring at him in concern.

"There's an island up ahead here, there we can get off and get our bearings.” Allan said. The boat bobbed up against the sand and five pairs of feet stumble out.

"Allan hold up." Colm called.

A great pan of sand is spread out in front of them, beyond that a deep green filled with tall trees and bushes. Exotic bird calls click and screech over his words. Allan turns.

Colm continues, "what happened back there?, where are we?".

"A Japanese bomb sunk us, you slipped and banged your head so I dragged you on the raft."

"And the others?"

"No clue."

For days the five soldiers trudged along the steep terrain rationing MRE's with the plan of walking the outline of the island to find some sort of mainland or a chain of islands to follow. The first night Allan caught Colm with his face close to the ground watching a leaf, when Allan asked him what he was doing he shot up and said nothing with sand falling from his face. Many other cases of his strange behaviour occurred but the one that stuck out the most to him was on the thirtieth day. The men had hunted a snow monkey and left the decapitated head in a bush near the camp while they cooked the body, Colm took the head out of the bush and stared into its dead eyes whispering, “I’m not you, you wish you were me, he didn’t save you, I was never you”, speaking more like a child than a soldier.

Late on the mens forty second day, with no mainland or other islands in sight, they sat by a fire to regain their strength and replan. Allan turns to Colm and felt a knife in his throat, the timid, thin man's eyes were bloodshot, the other soldiers had been washing in narrow rivers on the trail but Colm's was caked in dirt with a quivering wet lip.

"Colm, can I speak with you in private?"

"No."

The other three turn in interest, since being stranded on the island Allan has been the unofficial leader with no one daring to speak back.

"Now Colm."

Allan grabs Colm by the arm and drags him away from the fire to an isolated spot on a high grassy bluff where below the ocean crashes in the strong winds.

"You need to bring it together man, you're tanking morale." Allan said with a supportive hand on Colm's shoulder.

"Get you're fucking hand off me."

"Colm?"

"You don't have a clue do you?."

"Not a clue?, I’m the only one who knows what they’re doing, I’m the one trying to get us out of here alive."

"There is no out of here alive."

"Don't say that." Allan said, Now back to his supportive tone.

"That's not what I meant."

"What do you mean then."

"I mean we're already dead, this is hell."

Allan closes his eyes in frustration shaking his head and said.

"You're not dead, I saved you're life, you're not dead because of me."

"No, you're wrong."

The bright red eyes look down to the ripped trousers and he pulls out a pistol.

"I'll show you."

Allan steps away from the crazed man and his gun walking backwards towards the edge of the bluff.

"I can't die Allan, I'm already dead, so are you."

"Colm."

"I can show you, let me show you."

Allan side steps and Colm walks past him as if he wasn’t even talking to him and stops at the edge, he then turns with his back facing the drop and the sinking sun spitting red rays over the sky in a last ditch effort to give light behind him.

"I can show you Allan, let me show you, I can't die Allan, neither can you. Let me show you."

The pistol jolts with a crack against Colm's temple and a plume of blood erupts from the other side. He falls back off the bluff and lands down into the water.

"Where's Colm?" Several moments later the men back at the camp came up to investigate the noise. They interrogate a silent Allan in the new dark as he looks out onto the ocean below, a great white net of foam seems to be keeping down the salty ink as it attempts to fall from the earth in its raging undulation and join its kin in colour and become space, but it never will, it’s trapped, and now Colm floats along with it, sinking then rising then sinking again, begging for something more than just the world around it, something supernatural.

"Colm was dead before we left the ship, theres no saving a man who see's an act of God in a wind blown leaf."

"What's God got to do with it?"

"Nothing, he has nothing to do with it."