pressure off. They taught us that in training too. Of course, you get a bunch of animals like these together, pretty much the only thing they think about is sex. There was only one girl I could think about, my sweet little librarian whose face I could hardly picture anymore. Who knew what she was doing. It’d been half a year since she got married. She was probably knocked up by now. I enlisted right after I graduated from high school, and she broke my heart. I don’t think the two things were related. Who can say?
I had signed up thinking I could make some sense of this fuckedup world by betting my life in battle and seeing what fate dealt me. Boy was I ever green. If I was tea-green now, I must’ve been lime-green back then. Turns out my life isn’t even worth enough to buy one of those pricey bombs, and what cards fate has dealt me don’t have any rhyme or reason.
“Nuts to this. If we’re not gonna dig trenches, can’t we at least sit?”
“Can’t hide if we’re diggin’ trenches.”
“This active camouflage ain’t good for shit. Who’s to say they don’t see better’n we do, anyhow? They aren’t supposed to be able to see the attack choppers either, but they knock ’em out of the sky like balloons in a shootin’ gallery. Made for a helluva time at Okinawa.”
“If we run into the enemy, I’ll be sure to give ’em an eye test.”
“I still say the trench is man’s greatest invention. My kingdom for a trench.”
“You can dig all the trenches you want once we get back. My orders.”
“Isn’t that how they torture prisoners?”
“My pension to the man who invents a way to fasten your-shit, it’s started! Don’t get your balls blown off, gents!” Ferrell shouted.
The din of battle filled the air. I could feel the shudder of distant shells exploding.
I turned my attention to Yonabaru. After what happened in PT, maybe my dream was just a dream, but if Yonabaru died by my side at the beginning of the battle, I’d never forgive myself. I replayed the events of the dream in my head. The javelin had come from two o’clock. It had flown right through the camouflage screen, leaving it in tatters, all about a minute after the battle started, give or take.
I tensed my body, ready to be knocked down at any moment.
My arms were shaking. An itch developed in the small of my back. A wrinkle in my inner suit pressed against my side.
What are they waiting for?
The first round didn’t hit Yonabaru.
The shot that was supposed to have killed him was headed for me instead. I didn’t have time to move a millimeter. I’ll never forget the sight of that enemy javelin flying straight at me.
5
The paperback I’d been reading was beside my pillow.
It was a mystery novel about an American detective who was supposed to be some sort of expert on the Orient. I had my index finger wedged into a scene where all the key players meet for dinner at a Japanese restaurant in New York.
Without rising, I looked carefully around the barracks. Nothing had changed. The swimsuit pinup still had the prime minister’s head. The radio with the busted bass grated out music from the top bunk; from beyond the grave a singer admonished us against crying over a lost love. After waiting to be sure the DJ would read the weather report in her bubblegum voice, I sat up.
I shifted my weight as I sat on the edge of the bed.
I pinched my arm as hard as I could. The spot I pinched started to turn red. It hurt like a bitch. Tears blurred my vision.
“Keiji, sign this.”
Yonabaru craned his neck over the side of the top bunk.
“…”
“What’s the matter? Still asleep?”
“Nah. You need my signature? Sure.”
Yonabaru disappeared from view.
“Mind if I ask something a little weird?”
“What? I just need you to sign on the dotted line.” His voice came from over the bed frame. “Don’t need you to write anything else. No funny drawings of the lieutenant on the back or nothin’.”
“Why would I do that?”
“I dunno. It’s what I did the first time I signed.”
“Don’t start comparing-ah, forget it. What I wanted to ask was, the attack’s tomorrow, right?”
“Sure. That’s not the kinda thing they go changin’ up.”
“You’ve never heard of anyone reliving the same day over and over, have you?”
There was a pause before he replied. “You sure you’re awake? The day after yesterday’s today. The day after today is tomorrow. If it didn’t work like that, we’d never get to Christmas or Valentine’s Day. Then we’d be fucked. Or not.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“Listen. There’s nothin’ to tomorrow’s operation.”
“… Right.”
“Sweat it too much, you’ll turn into a feedhead-end up losing your mind before they even get a chance to blow your brains out.”
I stared blankly at the aluminum piping of the bed frame.
When I was a kid, the war against the Mimics had already started. Instead of cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers, we fought aliens using toy guns that fired spring-loaded plastic bullets. They stung a little when they hit, but that was all. Even up close they barely hurt. I always played the hero, taking the hit for the team. I’d spring out courageously into the line of fire, absorbing one bullet after another. I did a little jump with each successive hit, performing an impromptu interpretive dance. I was really good at it. Inspired by the hero’s death, his comrades would launch a bold counterattack. With his noble sacrifice, he’d ensured humanity’s salvation. Victory would be declared, and the kids who’d been the bad guys would come back to the human side and everyone would celebrate. There was no game like it.
Pretending to be a hero slain in battle was one thing. Dying a hero in a real war was another. As I got older, I understood the difference, and I knew I didn’t wanna die. Not even in a dream.
Some nightmares you can’t wake up from, no matter how many times you try. Me, I was trapped in a nightmare, and no matter how many times I woke up, I was still trapped. That I knew I was caught in a loop I couldn’t break out of was the worst part of all. I fought back panic.
But was it really happening to me again?
The same day I’d already lived through twice was unfolding again around me. Or maybe it was all a nightmare, after all. Of course things would be happening the way I remembered them. It was all in my head, so why not?
This was ridiculous. I punched the mattress.
Had I dreamed that black point flying at me? Was the javelin that shattered my breastplate and pierced my chest all in my head? Had I imagined the blood, the coughing up bits of lung?
Let me tell you what happens when your lungs are crushed. You drown, not in water, but in air. Gasp as hard as you like, crushed lungs can’t pass the oxygen your body needs to your bloodstream. All around you, your friends are breathing in and out without a second thought while you drown alone in a sea of air. I never knew this until it happened to me. I’d never even heard about it. I definitely hadn’t made that up. It really happened.
It didn’t matter if I never told anyone, if no one ever believed me. It would still be true. The sensation it had imprinted on my mind was proof enough of that. Pain that shoots through your body like a bolt of lightning, legs so damn heavy it feels like they’ve been stuffed with sandbags, terror so strong it crushes your heart-that’s not the stuff of imagination and dreams. I wasn’t sure how, but I’d been killed. Twice. No doubt about it.
