Time Marches On

Day 4,180, 20:25 • Published in Ireland Canada • by Thomas Arashikage


He steps out of his tent. The place he calls home. He didn’t choose to be here, but he is and that’s all that matters at this moment. Rain drips on his helmet. The tapping of rain drops help drown out the gunfire off in the distance. He goes to his post at the tower on the other side of the base. His position faces west. He gazes towards the west each and every time he steps into the tower day or night.

Once settled, he reaches into his pocket. It’s still there. It’s always there. Even when not in his pocket during laundry day it’s still there. He carries it in his mind. That warm sandy beach. The waves crashing in and out… in and further out. He can still feel the sand between his toes. Sand. Damn that sand. It gets everywhere. You can never really rid yourself of the sand. Funny a thing sand is. Little specks of glass. Tiny pieces of time.

He counts the seconds, minutes, hours and days. He doesn’t know why anymore. He just does. Weeks go by and not a word. That which he holds in his pocket is all he’s had, that and the echoes of her last words. He regrets not holding her tighter. Like he had done so many times before. What hurts the most, was being so close and having so much to say. He…

*ATTENTION ATTENTION* blares over the loudspeaker. *This is not a drill! Battle Stations! Battle Stations!*

His mind is suddenly filled with everything he learned in his training. Some of it good, some bad. But every bit of it necessary to survive. It makes him cold at times. Cold to everyone around him. For no fault of his own, it’s what was engrained in him to fight the enemy. The enemy sees emotions as weakness. He needs to think logical.

He checks his rifle and takes count of his magazines. He stands by, ready to engage the enemy if needed. He does a comms check with the rest of his platoon. They’re all on the same wave length. His mind flashes back to earlier and the thoughts of that day at the beach. The wind and how it caught her hair. He would go to her now if he could. In a heartbeat. No hesitation. But he has his orders. He must obey his orders.

Mortars start to hit. They bludgeon the ground with their impact. Everything shakes around him. He doesn’t fear death. Death comes for every man. He fears never walking on that warm sandy beach again. That brings more terror than anything the enemy could bombard him with. He sees that in every image of his future.

The enemy starts to advance on his position. He’s trained for this. What he hadn’t been trained for was how to show emotion. It’s in there. Just dying to get out. Will he get the chance to let it out? The odds of making it out of this predicament alive are slim to none. His base is surrounded.

That voice that blared over the loudspeaker was too late. The enemy had already breached the perimeter on the other side of the base. He could have seen it if he had gotten to his post faster but he was distracted. Training or no training. It’s fight or flight. There’s no backing down. He can’t back down. He has too much to live for. He would do anything to have more than what he holds in his pocket. He would run right into hell and back…

As bullets fly overhead a grenade lands squarely in his tower. He noticed just in time to grab it and throw it out. As it explodes he sees the flash. He’s back on the beach again. He must concentrate. The guys below are counting on him. He must repel the enemy. Sweat now replaces the rain. A hail of gunfire, smoke, waves crashing.

Chaos, as distorted as sand sifting through an open palm.


Cheers!