Appearance: 
  
 
Page:   
 Share It:
https://fiction.homepageofthedead.com/forum.pl?readfiction=1162H

Only the Dead
(© Biswapriya Purkayastha)

Page 1

"Only the dead have seen the end of war" - Plato


This is the third day I've been lying out on the side of the road. It's still early in the morning, too early for the vultures to start wheeling overhead, but they will as soon as the air warms up. You can plot the thermals by them, as though they're climbing round invisible spiral staircases in the sky.

At one time, back in school, I'd been interested in such things as thermals. Back then, I'd fantasised about someday being a glider pilot, soaring high above the earth on slender, silent wings. I'd follow the thermals up into the blue yonder until the land was like a map laid out below me, and then when the thermal gave out, I'd swoop down till I found another and climbed right back again.

The only soaring wings that are overhead now either bring death or follow behind, to feast on death's aftermath.

I suppose that I must be dead. I can't move or feel any pain, I can't blink my remaining eye, and I don't think I'm breathing. By now I must have been dead several days, then, and I should by rights have been buried. But I don't think anyone's going to bury me.

Not that I care anymore. If this is death, if this is all there is, burying me won't make any difference to anyone among the living . It will mean I can't see the sky anymore, and that's all that's left to me.

If I could turn my head just a little, I would have seen, over my shoulder, the shattered and charred hulks that line the road. I know they are there, because I had been on one of the trucks in that line, that night when we'd been ordered to withdraw. We'd crammed into all the vehicles available; we, and the civilians who'd chosen to come along with us rather than face the enemy. But we hadn't gone far before the traffic jammed up, converging lines of vehicles fighting for space on the road north. Soon, we were at a standstill.

My hands had been slippery with sweat on the wheel of my truck, and I'd wiped them on my thighs. Jameel, my old friend, had been riding beside me, and I'd looked across at him.

"Do you think they'll bomb us?" I'd asked. "If they do, we're sitting ducks. We can't fight back, nor can we run."

"No, why should they?" Jameel had replied. He was a big man with an equally big laugh, always cheerful. "We're pulling out as they demanded, aren't we? By tomorrow we'll be across the border, and that's all there will be to it."

"I hope you're right," I'd mumbled. "I just hope you're right."

"You and your pessimism." Jameel had guffawed and tapped his fingers on the dashboard. "Of course I'm right. Can't you ever look on the bright side for once?"

"I'll look on the bright side when we're back over the border," I'd told him. "And then –"

The first bombs had exploded at that moment, like blooming flowers, rising pink and red and orange over the lines of trucks and cars ahead. The concussion raced down the road at us, flinging vehicles over like toys, in a storm of fire and shattered glass and mangled metal.

I hadn't waited. I'd opened the door on my side, ready to jump, and looked across at Jameel. He was staring open mouthed at the scene ahead, at the explosions marching down the highway towards us. "Jameel!" I'd shouted. "Get out!"

He hadn't even turned his head in response. I don't know if he'd even heard my shout, over the shriek of enemy jet engines and the deafening sound of the explosions. He'd been looking open-mouthed at the scene through the windshield. I'd reached out to grab hold of his sleeve, to pull him from his seat and down on the road, but he hadn't responded. I think he was frozen with shock.

I'd only run a few steps, past the side of the truck and onto the side of the highway, when there had been a blinding flash and something had picked me up and thrown me down again. I'd felt dizzy for a moment, blacked out, and when I woke I was as I am now.

I still wonder what happened to him, to Jameel. Is he, like me, lying somewhere close by, staring at the sky? Did he get away somehow? I hope he got away. Jameel and I, we go back a long way. We played football in the street together when we were kids. He has a wife and a daughter, who calls me Uncle and likes to pull my moustache.

[ Continue to page 2 ]

Donate
Help keep this site online by donating and helping to cover its costs.

Information
Genre:Living Dead
Type:Short story
Rating:6.47 / 10
Rated By:28 users
Comments: 1 user
Total Hits:26188

Follow Us
 Join us on Facebook to be notified of updates
 Follow us on Twitter to be notified of updates

Forum Discussion
 "In A Violent Nature" - trailer... »
 Helldivers 2 (video game) »
 Alien: Romulus (trailer)... »
 Could James Rhodes aka War Machine hav... »
 Could James Remar have portrayed Rhode... »
 Reacher (Amazon series) »
 SRS Cinema (Merged Threads) »
 Rate the last movie you've seen »
 Fallout (Amazon Prime series) - Based ... »
 TWD: "The Ones Who Live" (Rick/Michonn... »
 TWD: Dead City teaser... »
 Had Rhodes and the boys been inside th... »
 Shogun (TV series) »
 MZ's Movie Review Thread »
 Dune: Part 2 (film) »
 For those who have visited the Monroev... »
 Masters of the Air (Apple TV+ series)... »
 the Walking Dead Empires. PC/MAC MMO S... »
 Boy Kills World (film) trailer... »
 Dawn Of The Dead (1978) - On-Set Home ... »