2020-05-11 - Body Parts

We should have burned that place to the fucking ground.

It's the first thing August thinks when he reappears in the cabin, in his kitchen, sweating, dizzy, heart pounding--

--and nauseated. He bolts for the bathroom.

It takes a bit for his stomach to settle. Fortunately, he hasn't had dinner yet, and now he sure as hell doesn't want to.

The nausea subsides, though the memories and emotions that caused it don't. They crowd in his head as he washes his face, stare back at him in the mirror.

He'd seen the results of that first shelling of Markale. They'd been sent to help with the rescue and recovery efforts. (The second one happened mere days after a building fell on him.) He sometimes thinks the only reason he doesn't think about Markale more is the incident which sent him home crowded out a lot of other horrible things to make room for itself; a hideous, high definition recording gobbling up space which would otherwise be used by recollections of lesser ugliness.

Not that Markale was objectively lesser. It wasn't. But he hadn't been there when the mortar landed, hadn't felt the initial wave of pain and agony and death. Just the aftermath. (Just.) Digging through wreckage, getting people to the MASH unit. He was a combat engineer, so they got the most use out of him helping with the logistics of searching for survivors (bodies, really--and often, just parts). A numbness had set in after the first few minutes, his mind and his Glimmer refusing to properly acknowledge what was going on. Even now he can't be sure he remembers all of those few days too clearly. (Except that he can, because if something is bad enough, he knows it was real.)

Those hadn't been people in the Dream. Aidan and Grant confirmed it. But it didn't matter, not really. Body parts scattered around were still body parts. The devastation following the eruption isn't less if you didn't see the mountain explode. The aftermath of a massacre isn't less horrific than the event itself.

He blinks a few times, takes a deep breath and shuts his eyes. He meditates, after a fashion. Focuses on his breathing, the smell of the soap in the dish, the porceline of the vanity under his hands. It takes a while, but eventually, he stops hearing the sobs, smelling the concrete and blood, seeing people (or what's left of them) trapped under cars and debris. The sights and sounds of that time and place retreat and fade. For the moment.

He'll have a hell of a nightmare tonight. He can already tell. He might not get much sleep. And in that case, he may need a revenge toke.

Or three.