the soldier

The piece of money lay, fused to the cement, with the stoic stare of Washington nothing more than mere scratching in the entire granite outcropping.  The haggard man stumbled forward, his feet scraping at the ground in sudden excitement.  He gawked at the ground in furious contemplation, silent.  Had the sun not been obscured by smog, it would have looked confusedly at the man, straggling, slightly bent, fixated upon the ground, boring holes through the quarter.  Fixating, breathing solemnly, he bowed reverently.  He picked himself up to labor on down towards the crater, barely recognizant of his staggering.1

Humbled and bemused, the smog dissipated allowing a glint of light to illuminate the quarter, if merely for a brief second, to the man�s ignorance. 2

Had there been light in the path of the man and not to his back, he would have surmised his decline into the mouth of the crater, yet as it was, his hobble prevented him from judging descent.  His eyes failed him, yet he barely understood, so perceptive of failure. 3

The man�s stick raked the ground, his compass, his tool, his science.  His formula for survival.  He allowed it to lead, he followed, in somberness.  It was his religion, his fate, his divine justice.  Petty circumstance made no precedent to the gravity of the stick.  The stick ruled supreme, or at least had.  The man�s silence was merely a fa�ade to distract from the existence of his guiding stick.  ï¿½ï¿½Speak softly�, the man might utter in between gasps.  Slurring his sibilants, he�d utter ��speak softly� to sway the tides.  Perspective dictates the motion of his world.  4

The fallout began after the extemporaneous attack by the Egyptians of the Americans, using Russian funding.  Several hours later, facing an obliterated east coast and more impending deaths, the executive decision was made to retaliate in full force.  Despite excessive training, a plane was shot down detonating the bombs just outside of Guam, calling forth a massive tidal wave which washed away entire countries.  There were no restraints after that, and despite losing nearly all populations of nearly all countries, the fighting continued until there was no one left to press the big red button.  5

The man stumbled on, towards the horizon, unknowingly sparse of life.  Calamity breeds silence, he might have said, had he spoken at all.  The man huddled over a cinder that had long since expired.  His stick raked the ashes and found them barren.  The lone man was doomed to walk on, towards the horizon, until he, too, expired, barren and desolate as the ground he stumbled across.6

His crooked smile, jawing at the impression of the sun through the smog, jawing at the feebleness of his existence, jawing at the indolence of the dense fog, and yet he knew his life was feeble and absent-minded.  Gliding through desolate field after field, he laughed.  He laughed as a lunatic, as a man possessed by his own ego.  He laughed, and continued laughing until he fell into a pile upon the ground, convulsing with laughter.   He laughed for all those who failed to laugh.  He laughed for those who could not laugh.  He laughed especially at those who did laugh, and we ostracized for laughing.  Laughter is the companion of a psychotic recluse, and laughter walks hand in hand with the man, because both want company.  7

The man had reached the center of the crater, and fell upon the ground.  Had he understood where he was, he would have continued to lay in indolence.  He reached his destination.  He lay atop the ruins Gettysburg, and in poetic justice, sputtered and died in infamy, a soldier in the field of battle, reckless and innocent, still incapable of dealing with his mortality until it blew up in his face. 8