The Journal
By
JT Lewis
Copyright 2012 by JT Lewis
June 17, 1918
The current rise of temperature has brought out the stench of human waste in our little trench home. I fear my feet will rot in my boots from sloughing around in it constantly as we hunker over to avoid the enemy’s bullets.
Seems there is always someone available over there to fling bullets our way, some with deadly effect.
Willy Jones caught one yesterday, I was with him as he passed. Never have I seen such fear expressed in someone’s eyes as when he took his last breath. I had to work to remove his hands from my tunic after he grabbed my collar in a desperate attempt to hold on to his life I suppose.
Was the fear in his eyes from his lack of belief in anything after this life, or the certainty of it?
I pray often…hoping there is something….someone there listening. But it seems less likely the longer I live in this hell.
And yet…it’s the only hope I have.
I closed the old leather journal, taking a moment to trace my finger across the strange tooled cross on the front of it. Gabriel’s cross they had always called it, my grandfather Gabriel.
I sullenly stared at it, thinking back on him, missing him already.
He had lived like no one else I knew of, just dying like he had seemed so out of character for him. No adventure, no plan… he just didn’t wake up.
I sighed as I laid the book on the bed and walked over to the window. The yard was full of people milling about in their Sunday best. Most had come to pay their respects, some just for a free meal. I desperately wanted them all to go, to leave us to our sorrow so that we could make peace with this new reality.
At sixteen, I had very little experience with death, much less dealing with a close family member’s. I felt an errant tear making its way down my cheek and quickly wiped it away with my sleeve. My emotions had been all over the place today, it was hard to keep it all in sometimes.
Turning back toward the bed, I again glanced at the journal. I thought how strange it was to read about his experiences in the Great War. He would never talk to me of these, saying it was just something that he had done, no more, no less.
I did remember him telling me once however, that he hadn’t laughed at anything for six months after it was over. When finally he did, he described how strange it had felt at first…and how wonderful. He had enjoyed the sensation so much in fact, that he wasn’t able to stop for twenty minutes.
When finally he had excised it all, he had realized that he had finally started healing, and that it was time to move on with his life. And that’s what he did, never looking back on the war from that day forward.
But I was interested.
I felt the irrational need to look farther into the mind that was my grandfather. Experience his war, his thoughts. I was not ready to say goodbye yet.
Sitting on the bed, I opened the journal again.
June 20, 1918
I have gotten addicted to the French cigarettes that they ration to us daily, it helps pass the time…giving us something to do besides kill and contemplate our own death.
Alexander Hill and I were on duty earlier today with the rest of the squad. Being “on duty” here currently means we take turns shooting at the enemy…trying to keep their heads down. We created quite a game out of the shooting…whenever anyone got a hit, everyone would give that guy a cigarette. There was a time early in the day where I was two days ahead in my ration! I guess all of that rabbit hunting paid off after all!
