Stephen positioned his legs against the wall and put all his strength to shoving the fallen cabinet into an angle for a makeshift defensive position. Pain from his leg shot through his body but his scream was muffled out by the cabinet’s loud screeching as jagged metal creased through the linoleum flooring. Its slight movement provided Stephen with enough encouragement to ignore the fire he was feeling in his leg. Having only moved the cabinet about ten inches, he reasoned that the angle could actually serve to deflect incoming rounds better than the hope of resisting them. He sent a volley of gunfire throughout the hallway. His targeting was pure guesswork, and he half expected the rounds would naturally find their targets. Identifying the enemy’s advances through the increased volume of their weapons, he kept firing until his magazine was empty.
The responding fire continued but after a moment the rapid pace stopped. The hallway was beginning to clear of smoke, and Stephen heard Arabic voices speaking to one other. Stephen reasoned they had realized he was pinned and they were advancing on his position. Slapping in a fresh 30 round magazine, Stephen again raised his rifle and took a deep breath before discharging the first three rounds. The hallway filled with an agonizing scream followed by angry shouts and a towering sequence of bullets pelting the walls of the cove. Stephen ducked back out of the line of fire as the unflinching cabinet deflected and absorbed the enemy’s fury.
Another heavy thud hit the hallway wall just past the entrance to the cove. The forcefully thrown grenade continued rolling further down the hallway and violently exploded without endangering Stephen or Waters; but filling their protective little nook with smoke. It became clear to Stephen the insurgents would continue to advance in order to obtain an angle where they could simply lob another grenade and blow he and Waters out of the cove. Stephen leaned over the cabinet and continued firing with quick bursts into the darkness as empty shell casings leapt from the ejection port of his rifle. Then it stopped. The weapon had locked up again. Irritated and enraged, he dropped the magazine and immediately slammed it back into the rifle. He pulled back the rifle’s charging handle, released it with a loud smack, tapped the forward assist button, angled the muzzle into the obstructive haze and pulled the trigger. Nothing. Stephen couldn’t exhale. He pressed the button to release the magazine and pulled it from the rifle. His heart pounded through his chest with anticipation and a tingling crawled up the back of his neck as he ran his thumb over the top of the magazine where his ammunition should be. He felt the unmistakable smooth bump of the spring press which forces bullets to the top. He was empty.
Stephen’s momentary shock was rudely interrupted and he quickly ducked as the insurgents continued firing into the cove. The smoky haze in the air began to clear but it served as no relief to Stephen as chaos and confusion of darkness were his only remaining defense. The peppering holes in the wall of the cove were increasing in their angle, suggesting a cautious progression by the insurgents. He didn’t know if they figured out that he was out of bullets. Perhaps that awareness is what prevented them from tossing another grenade in toward the cove. Quite possibly they were concerned about the building’s structural integrity or perhaps a close-range execution was simply more to their liking. Then again, there was no telling how many of their friends Stephen had killed in that hallway. They may have something far less pleasant in mind as retribution. Stephen hoped for the grenade.
Stephen pulled Waters’ limp body close to himself. The gradual settling of smoke, debris and ash permitted him to look closely at Waters for the first time. Stephen’s own heart was beating so fast he couldn’t even get a read on Waters’ pulse. He didn’t know if Waters was alive or dead. At this point, it didn’t matter. They would both be dead soon.
“Waters? You there? Talk to me, man!” Stephen was speaking to the dark and had a greater expectation of the wall responding than the unconscious young man lying next to him. A cold tingling recoiled through his head and spine. Despite the pain, Stephen knew the feeling came from fear. He was overcome by the sense of being at the end and being entirely by himself. While his family navigated the challenges of daily life, in the dark decimated corner on the other side of the world, he was alone.
Anxious for what was to come next he thought about his wife and daughter. A lot of guys said you shouldn’t think about family when you’re in a hot spot. Something about the thought of them causing a soldier to lose his nerve and screw something up. Stephen couldn’t disagree more. Thinking about his family gave him a determination, strength, a focus. If there was any chance of making it out of this hallway alive, it could only be because he was thinking of them and how much he longed to hold them once more.
Staring into the flow of dust particles but looking at nothing, Stephen’s thoughts drifted off to what it meant to be a husband to Sarah. He loved his wife; there was no doubt. But he couldn’t communicate with her and he was certain distance had not been the only problem. Every recent conversation was tense and immediately launched into him interrogating Sarah about Hailey’s health. Any other topic which happened to broach their brief chats did little more than provide revelations about something else that had broken or gone wrong and was more expensive then they could afford. His home was falling apart, metaphorically and physically, and he was too far away to do anything about it with his marriage beginning to represent the never-ending list of problems he couldn’t fix. Another round thrust its way into the cove and penetrated the copy machine. The burst of shredded plastic and explosion of internal components startled Stephen.
Lying on his back, he tried to control his deep rapid breathing by closing his eyes and forcing his mind to refocus on the daydream. At the bottom of a burnt out cove, inside some old office building in a war-ravaged city, in the middle of a place he had no business being, just waiting for men he didn’t even know to come and kill him, he had no choice but to be honest. He had to admit he had been unsure if Sarah was up to the task of staying married. Being completely real with himself, he didn’t know if he was either. If it wasn’t for the chance to speak with his daughter, Stephen wondered if he would even call Sarah.
Hailey, on the other hand, was a purpose for his life. He longed to just lay down on the ground next to her and wait until the irresistible gravitational pull of a father’s vulnerable back inevitably drew her to jump up and spring onto him. The way she would look at him; inspecting his face until suddenly, as if the thought had just occurred to her, she would plant a quick but sweet kiss on his forehead and spontaneously hug him with no intention of ever letting go.
Letting his mind drift on about Hailey, he couldn’t help but worry about the likelihood of her cancer returning and the fear that her life could be cut so short from the illness. With that, so much of her life had already gone. Time was passing and he was missing it. It wasn’t just time, there was an additional slight from life that fueled Stephen’s frustration. Instead of the picturesque image of her running free across fields of dandelions dressed up like a princess, a large bulk of his mind’s pictures of Hailey had been that of a physically and mentally exhausted little girl cloaked in a hospital gown, straining to expose that soft and tired smile. The smile that plainly revealed her submission to the routine pokes and prods of the constant testing she had to begrudgingly undergo. Stephen wondered if she even understood what was going on, and that not every young girl was made to face the trials she had to go through. He hoped not.
Hailey had become used to nurses and needles, something Stephen felt no child should have to hold a memory of. He wanted one more day with her. Something that would give him a chance to replace those memories of hospital trips with fishing trips, baseball games and daddy/daughter dances. If not a day, then maybe a morning. One morning to teach her that jelly-filled donuts really can be breakfast and that a really good joke can lead to hot cocoa blowing out your nose. If not a morning, then a minute. Just a minute to tell her how much he loved her and that he had made the biggest mistake of his life by leaving her. One single minute to tell her that he hoped she would one day forgive him, even when he knew he could never forgive himself.