Left and Right

I hear gunfire in the distance. Echoing through the valley like calling your name.

The radio beeps and blips with incoming and outgoing transmissions. I hear words, but it’s all noise. Voices and words. Instruments of the English language that are now incomprehensible. If I try hard enough, maybe I could take notice.

It isn’t my shift, I’ll let it go. All I hear is noise. Noise, with too much of it to process at all once. Whenever I listen to the radio at home now, I tend to phase it out. Just like everything else.

I take a second to grab a hiatus. I exit the wooden shack building and see a mushroom cloud of dirt and debris trace through the horizon line in milliseconds. Discharging straight into the air. Shattering the pattern of mountains behind it. I pull out my pack of cigarettes and gaze without blinking. Eyes wider than the moon.

Here comes the sound wave. The rumble which follows. I anticipate my eardrums to sever the white noise of troops in contact and gunfire. My lower extremities tighten like bolts to the ground. It is unknown if someone is dead or dying. It is unknown, and there is nothing I can do from here.

The burst cracks through the air like a whip. A tense and humbling roar. The building behind shakes. Coffee mugs and pencils fall to the floor.

“Boisvert, get the fuck in here,” someone screams to me. I take no notice. It’s always the same line. So much to say, so much to do, so much upkeep. I finish my cigarette and take the final look at the upsurging dust cloud.

A patrol in the area encountered an improvised explosive device (IED). The preferred weapon of our declared enemy.

When the patrol returns, I ask the unfortunate question.

“What happened?”

Without reciting their name, I see the patrol is less one soul than they departed with.

The patrol leader, wiping the dust from his brow. Sweat, blood, and dirt. The silvery lining of grime and experience.

“I told him to go left,” he says. “When he should have gone right.”