Inspired by Wacky's unstoppable story skills. Thought I might as well write something new, lame as it is.
Zeke knew it was over before the bullet hit.
He had seen the gunman clock him out of the corner of his eye just as he had raised the barrel on his L85A2 assault rifle. His unit
has scoped the insurgency position only a split second before and it had been too late to gain cover.
It had been what had become a routine patrol for the 7th Armoured Brigade along the Avandrud waterway intersecting Basra but in the blink of an eye it had become complete chaos.
Now they were in a gun fight for their lives.
Zeke's decision to join the military and go to Iraq had been hotly contested by both his father and mother; but what opportunities had really been open to him? He was a high school drop-out, not even managing to finish his GCSE’s. The military had seemed the only solution short of a minimum wage, futureless job, supplied to him by some equally useless Job Center advisor.
At 21 years of age, Zeke had been in Iraq for just north of two months. And now suddenly destiny had dealt him a cruel blow. He braced for the inevitable and a moment later, like the hourly chime of Big Ben, the inevitable struck. The force knocked him from his knees back onto the ground behind him. He looked stunned and in shock up at the sky as his hands tried to find ground beside him. As the madness continued to play out around him he lay there for what seemed an eternity. He was well aware of what had happened to him but he felt no pain. His body was struggling violently to breath but it was involuntary movement. The juxtaposition of body and mind contemplating and dealing with the fate of the other independently.
“Man down, man down!” the shouts around him were drowning in suppression fire.
“Zeke! Can you hear me, squeeze my hand if you can hear me!”
He could hear Scott, but the words failed him, reality was slipping on all three dimensions as the last of his senses finally failed him he felt the gravity of his being lose hold, blackness swelled
around him until finally it engulfed his mind completely.
...
“Well this is just wonderful. A fine mess you’ve landed us in.” Zeke heard the footsteps of the man before he saw him.
He spun around looking from corner to corner. Nothing but black all around although he could see himself quite clearly.
"Am I... dead?" the words left Zeke with a degree of hesitation not knowing what or who he was talking to.
"I have no idea," came the voice. Zeke squinted to see through the blackness at the face emerging.
He might have been surprised that it was himself looking back from the darkness, a look of scorn upon his clean shaven face. But today had spiraled out of control beyond reckoning already and there seemed no use confusing himself further.
"I was shot, it was serious--I know it was serious."
"Well no doubt, getting shot usually is serious. You know, on the whole." Suddenly frustration took hold of Zeke. Was he was being treated like an idiot by himself? And with the same type of passive-agressive smarmy attitude he could turn on with ease around those who warranted it?
"Ok, yeah, I think I gathered that. But that doesn't explain whey I'm standing here--he quickly checked his chest with his hand--with no gun shot wound dressed like I'm about to go dancing at a 50's high school prom talking to a manifestation of myself with a clear attitude problem." Zeke was used to responding with the same as he was dealt, whether he was being lectured in some twilight limbo by himself or not.
"Well, what did you expect this to be like exactly? Like you'd strolled onto the set of Kate Bush filming Wuthering Heights?" came the reply, doused heavily in sarcasm.
"Expect what to be! Where the hell am I and why am I being such a dick, I mean, why are you.. arhh. What the fuck is going on!?" He was getting angry as well as confused now, better this than allowing fear to grip him he thought.
"You're in Basra, Iraq. You've just been shot an inch left of your sternum and you're bleeding to death and have squandered your life like the complete idiot you are. I thought that was quite obvious," the other Zeke replied.
Zeke stopped him. "And you're what? My inner voice, my conscience, a hallucination?
"Those sound as likely as anything else, I really don't know. You're me, I'm you. There is only one of us. I'm not Yoda or the Dalai
Lama, I'm Zeke Williamson, a down and out with delusions of grandeur--from Middlesbrough of all places. Hardly special in any way,
though we might have been."
"Might have been?" Zeke knew what he meant but he asked anyway.
"You didn't even try, you just lay there, looking up at the sky re-evaluating your life like fate had led you there and laid you
neatly on the ground. News flash, Z, you're not important in the grand scale of things; you're just like everyone else trying to take
something from life while they've still got the chance. The longer you try and find meaning for your life the more places you'll find
to hide it." Suddenly the anger on his alter-ego's face wavered. OK, that was pretty Guru like, I apologize.
"It doesn't matter now anyway, It's over already. There isn't any point in reflecting on a lost life now," Zeke replied.
"Oh, I agree, you did enough of that when you were walking around the place in those oh so fetching fatigues playing soldier boy
thinking it might impress Sarah. Look where It's gotten you. Engaged to Gavin still is she?"
"Last I heard," Zeke replied, his head bowed. "Wait, playing soldier? I think that getting shot constitutes a bit more than..
"Oh, sorry, times up," came the reply. "Looks like we will have to finish this little heart-to-heart another time, Z. You're being
thrown back into the preverbial soup afterall it would seem."
Zeke looked up as the top of his head grew warm and everything around him turned a dull orange. He couldn't make anything of his
surroundings out now and suddenly a feeling of intense nausea came over him.
"He's waking up, get him some water, keep the pressure down on his chest!"
He could hear the voice of the units medic as the unmistakable sound of the humvee roared and vibrated through him.
"Don't move Private, you're going to be fine, we will have you back at base camp in no time. You took quite a beating out there!"
"I'm alive." He could only just mouth the words now and he was for the first time in intense pain.
He looked up at the other soldiers scanning the horizon from his position on the floor of the humvee as Scott knelt down beside him.
"We though we'd lost you out there, Z," he said with a comforting smirk on his face. "You've only just got here as well, you'll be
decked out in your own Victoria Cross if you keep this sort of reckless behaviour up!"
Zeke forced a smile as he took stock of his good fortune. 'Might have been' could once again become 'going to be,' he thought to himself as he looked down at the bloody bandages pressed against his body.
'Damnit, Zeke, you really are a dick!'
Zeke knew it was over before the bullet hit.
He had seen the gunman clock him out of the corner of his eye just as he had raised the barrel on his L85A2 assault rifle. His unit
has scoped the insurgency position only a split second before and it had been too late to gain cover.
It had been what had become a routine patrol for the 7th Armoured Brigade along the Avandrud waterway intersecting Basra but in the blink of an eye it had become complete chaos.
Now they were in a gun fight for their lives.
Zeke's decision to join the military and go to Iraq had been hotly contested by both his father and mother; but what opportunities had really been open to him? He was a high school drop-out, not even managing to finish his GCSE’s. The military had seemed the only solution short of a minimum wage, futureless job, supplied to him by some equally useless Job Center advisor.
At 21 years of age, Zeke had been in Iraq for just north of two months. And now suddenly destiny had dealt him a cruel blow. He braced for the inevitable and a moment later, like the hourly chime of Big Ben, the inevitable struck. The force knocked him from his knees back onto the ground behind him. He looked stunned and in shock up at the sky as his hands tried to find ground beside him. As the madness continued to play out around him he lay there for what seemed an eternity. He was well aware of what had happened to him but he felt no pain. His body was struggling violently to breath but it was involuntary movement. The juxtaposition of body and mind contemplating and dealing with the fate of the other independently.
“Man down, man down!” the shouts around him were drowning in suppression fire.
“Zeke! Can you hear me, squeeze my hand if you can hear me!”
He could hear Scott, but the words failed him, reality was slipping on all three dimensions as the last of his senses finally failed him he felt the gravity of his being lose hold, blackness swelled
around him until finally it engulfed his mind completely.
...
“Well this is just wonderful. A fine mess you’ve landed us in.” Zeke heard the footsteps of the man before he saw him.
He spun around looking from corner to corner. Nothing but black all around although he could see himself quite clearly.
"Am I... dead?" the words left Zeke with a degree of hesitation not knowing what or who he was talking to.
"I have no idea," came the voice. Zeke squinted to see through the blackness at the face emerging.
He might have been surprised that it was himself looking back from the darkness, a look of scorn upon his clean shaven face. But today had spiraled out of control beyond reckoning already and there seemed no use confusing himself further.
"I was shot, it was serious--I know it was serious."
"Well no doubt, getting shot usually is serious. You know, on the whole." Suddenly frustration took hold of Zeke. Was he was being treated like an idiot by himself? And with the same type of passive-agressive smarmy attitude he could turn on with ease around those who warranted it?
"Ok, yeah, I think I gathered that. But that doesn't explain whey I'm standing here--he quickly checked his chest with his hand--with no gun shot wound dressed like I'm about to go dancing at a 50's high school prom talking to a manifestation of myself with a clear attitude problem." Zeke was used to responding with the same as he was dealt, whether he was being lectured in some twilight limbo by himself or not.
"Well, what did you expect this to be like exactly? Like you'd strolled onto the set of Kate Bush filming Wuthering Heights?" came the reply, doused heavily in sarcasm.
"Expect what to be! Where the hell am I and why am I being such a dick, I mean, why are you.. arhh. What the fuck is going on!?" He was getting angry as well as confused now, better this than allowing fear to grip him he thought.
"You're in Basra, Iraq. You've just been shot an inch left of your sternum and you're bleeding to death and have squandered your life like the complete idiot you are. I thought that was quite obvious," the other Zeke replied.
Zeke stopped him. "And you're what? My inner voice, my conscience, a hallucination?
"Those sound as likely as anything else, I really don't know. You're me, I'm you. There is only one of us. I'm not Yoda or the Dalai
Lama, I'm Zeke Williamson, a down and out with delusions of grandeur--from Middlesbrough of all places. Hardly special in any way,
though we might have been."
"Might have been?" Zeke knew what he meant but he asked anyway.
"You didn't even try, you just lay there, looking up at the sky re-evaluating your life like fate had led you there and laid you
neatly on the ground. News flash, Z, you're not important in the grand scale of things; you're just like everyone else trying to take
something from life while they've still got the chance. The longer you try and find meaning for your life the more places you'll find
to hide it." Suddenly the anger on his alter-ego's face wavered. OK, that was pretty Guru like, I apologize.
"It doesn't matter now anyway, It's over already. There isn't any point in reflecting on a lost life now," Zeke replied.
"Oh, I agree, you did enough of that when you were walking around the place in those oh so fetching fatigues playing soldier boy
thinking it might impress Sarah. Look where It's gotten you. Engaged to Gavin still is she?"
"Last I heard," Zeke replied, his head bowed. "Wait, playing soldier? I think that getting shot constitutes a bit more than..
"Oh, sorry, times up," came the reply. "Looks like we will have to finish this little heart-to-heart another time, Z. You're being
thrown back into the preverbial soup afterall it would seem."
Zeke looked up as the top of his head grew warm and everything around him turned a dull orange. He couldn't make anything of his
surroundings out now and suddenly a feeling of intense nausea came over him.
"He's waking up, get him some water, keep the pressure down on his chest!"
He could hear the voice of the units medic as the unmistakable sound of the humvee roared and vibrated through him.
"Don't move Private, you're going to be fine, we will have you back at base camp in no time. You took quite a beating out there!"
"I'm alive." He could only just mouth the words now and he was for the first time in intense pain.
He looked up at the other soldiers scanning the horizon from his position on the floor of the humvee as Scott knelt down beside him.
"We though we'd lost you out there, Z," he said with a comforting smirk on his face. "You've only just got here as well, you'll be
decked out in your own Victoria Cross if you keep this sort of reckless behaviour up!"
Zeke forced a smile as he took stock of his good fortune. 'Might have been' could once again become 'going to be,' he thought to himself as he looked down at the bloody bandages pressed against his body.
'Damnit, Zeke, you really are a dick!'
