Futile by Agent Midnight

Life is good, you say.

You're sitting in your nice little homes with your families all separated in their own little bedrooms, but you know they're there, don't you? You know you can step out into the hallway and see beautiful light shining from the door across from yours or down the hall. Maybe you can hear the sound of pots carefully clicking against each other, or does the sweet fragrance of dinner reach you right now from where you sit?

You know that if you get hurt, someone will be there to take you under their wing until you feel dandy again, don't you? You walk outside and fall, maybe scraping your knee and getting a nasty bruise on your arm, and someone will come and comfort you for all their worth just to make you feel fine.

Run to your mothers, fathers, friends, family and someone will drop what they are doing just to ask you if you are all right. Someone will come to you and maybe hold you until you're both laughing at some stupid joke you read in a book, or maybe an article you had the fortune of reading in the newspapers. Go sit in front of your damned television sets and gasp in shock at the war coverage because we all know that watching a screen is as equally terrifying as being there.

Of course.

See that terror? That horror? That pain?

The loss of hope? The fear?

See that urgent news flash with the sad-looking boy being beaten to a bloody-fucking pulp in front of America just because he fell into the wrong hands? Bleeding and crying in front of millions of people just because he was too damn stupid to not get caught by the fucking enemy?

That's me.

While you're crying over us, or them, or everyone, I'm out there trying to make something for myself just because it's what I feel is right. Go ahead. Eat your popcorn and watch your rental movies after you get bored with the endless news flashes and top stories, but don't ever forget that there are people still out there trying to save face.

How do you feel?

All safe and sound, in front of a brick fireplace with a book.

How do you feel?

Cooking dinner when there are others who have none.

How do you want to feel?

Do you think you should feel bad for living a life?

Of course not. That's ridiculous.

Remember what we go through.

All of the soldiers, enemies and friends alike, dammit.

Imagine searing, red-hot pain ripping across your body from the violent gnawing of sharp teeth. Tearing, incapacitating torture of your senses and all you can possibly think of doing is to sit down and cry it all out. Imagine for a second how you might feel if the tip of an uncleaned, infectious blade slits through skin that is yours and yours alone. Being invaded by something that was not given permission or any consent from you as a human being.

How do you feel?

How can you feel anything other than disgust as an unwilling scream flies from your bloodied lips in a guttural cry of false hope and tainted pain? Can you look at human existence with anything but disappointment as you see primal, animal-matched rage in the eyes of fellow man? Those gleaming eyes staring at you like you were equal to a blade of grass or a broken bird lying helplessly on the ground.

Can you feel anything?

Any remorse whatsoever as you reach into the folds of your coat and take another life just because you want your own lifeless existence to go on until you are forcefully taken away by something you can't see? Do you feel the cold metal of your gun resting in your hand and are overcome with such power that you want nothing more than to lift that gun and aim?

Do you go back to a place you would like nothing more than to call home, fail to do so, and see your friend's dead eyes and know yours match them? Do you shy away from mirrors just because you are almost physically appalled of the guilt that is etched across your face each and every goddamn night?

When you curl up in your soft, covered beds and are comforted by someone's arms, do you both cry and whisper the dreams that you know won't ever come true?

Do you whisper sentences that sadly start with "I will never be able to..." and you start listing?

I will never be able to live in a house that is my own, I say.

I will never be able to marry you, I say.

I will never be able to love you the way you deserve, my friend says.

Do you ever wake up and realize that you may have to leave your best friend alone and you might never see him again? Do you ever wake up and find that same best friend gone, packed and left in the middle of the night, and you have to try to find something to keep you occupied until he comes back or turns up dead?

Do you have such thoughts?

Tell me. Do you?

Are you ever worried that your heart will not continue beating until you either see your friend's face as he steps through the front door or hear from a friend who heard from a friend that they found a body that matches? How many times, realistically, have you had to follow your teammates to a hospital to see if you can find your missing companion when you have heard no response from him in days? Has it ever occurred to you how you might feel if you had to look for a body after a nasty battle and realize how much of a low you have reached after searching only after a couple of days?

Can you imagine such paranoia in your own life?

Oh, been two days... better go see if he's dead.

Do you have such fears?

Do you have dreams? Hopes? Desires?

Believe it or not, I want nothing more than to feel safe at night as I'm in bed. How sad is it that I don't even feel safe in my own house? I don't feel safe in a house full of soldiers because none of us have any confidence. We all sleep restlessly in separate rooms when we really want to be on the hard floor in a position where we can see both the door and the windows. Sometimes I want to grab my friend's hand and pull him into the next room so I can curl up in a bed with another friend in hopes that I feel safe. If I had one wish, I would wish that the war would end and we would be happy because I don't want to take the walk down the steps and see nothing but emotionless eyes gaze into mine as I sit for breakfast.

I don't want to have to make idle chitchat to keep the voices from filtering in my head because no one is talking, not even when spoken to. I don't want to walk down the hallway and hear sobbing coming from one of our bedrooms just because we have another mission to complete, more lives to risk, more foolishness to mark off of the list. I, myself, don't want to shed another tear because one of us steps out the front door without a glance back to where the rest of us crowd in the hallway. When the engine of the car grows fainter and fainter until it disappears and leaves us in silence. One by one, each of us slowly breaking from the group to walk away in opposite directions.

To be alone.

To be alone when all we want to do is pray to gods we don't necessarily believe in just for the safety of the one in our group who has left.

Have you felt this way?

No?

When I have to watch another friend walk through that door towards possible death, I want nothing more than to scream at them to stay and forget that we ever heard about that particular mission. To just forget it all and sit down on the couch to watch a movie when we all know that we have to do what we have to do and there's no use questioning it.

We're soldiers.

We do what we have to do.

No questions.

No comments.

No complaints.

I'm afraid that if I don't do what I'm told, a future that I might have will be gone.

Do you feel this way?

Is your future still a future?

Is my existence appalling to you?

I'm a soldier.

I am the way I am because I'm told to be this way.

These are my orders.

Do you hate everything I stand for?