1000 Yard Stare: Part 1

1000 Yard Stare: The Contemptible Struggle



“Don’t ever tolerate threats, Jimmy” He spoke in that stern but soft manner, “Don’t ever modify your action against those who seek to do you harm; resist, though every fibre in your body may plead for you to kneel, and the burden of your struggle becomes a heavy weight on your heart, resist.”



Of all the people I’d met in life, I still thought this man was the most noble, wise and brave. Just today, he collared a young man not much older than me who he’d seen scratching the cars on the street with a key. Not bad for a 77 year old.



"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” He spoke softly.



“Why do they do it Grandad?” I asked naively, “What makes them want to damage everything like that? What makes them want to hurt people?”



He leans back in his arm chair, raising his hands behind his head.

“I’d like to tell you. Saying that, I wish I knew myself.” He replies, “But I’ll tell you this, you can neither blame, nor absolve him for it.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“It is comforting to pick out labels for the wayward youths, it is comforting to demonize a criminal, rather than accept them as a human being.” He says leaning forward once more.

“Do not make the mistake of assuming that you or I are separate, enlightened, or otherwise beyond the reach of destructive behaviour. There could be one million reasons for that young man’s actions, not a single excuse, but more reasons than I care to list.”

He clasps his hands together, speaking softly.

“It could be that, like so many other children, he has nobody in this world who cares for him, no strong parental role model to guide him.” He explains,

“Or perhaps people crushed by law, have no hopes but from power.” He states, “If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much to hope for and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous.”

I look at him, and think of what small memory of my parents resides in my consciousness, and I am acutely reminded of the great debt I owe to this man for taking me in and caring for me.



“Granddad” I ask cautiously, “You’re seventy seven years old. How do you...” I pause briefly

“How do you have the guts to step out and confront him like that?”

I try to avoid confronting the fact that I know I wouldn’t have acted in the same manner.



“Guts?” He asks rhetorically, “No. Bravery isn’t confronting a menace, whom you know will yield at the first sign of resistance. To be truly brave, one has to first be scared. We must first come to accept our fear, not deny it’s existence. First, you must accept your fear, accept the power and dominion it has over you. Then, with no other means of escape, you must confront your fears and overcome them.” He rambles.

“I did not fear that young man. What you witnessed was not bravery, just a good civilian performing his civic duty.” He continues.

“The last time I saw true bravery, was during the war.” He says, blinking briefly.

“Young men, not much older than you, going into no-man’s land, knowing they were going to die. Running into the paths of machine guns and mortars, knowing they would never return. That was true bravery.”

I nod, appreciating the gravity of the things he has experienced.

“Have you ever seen the thousand yard stare James?” He asks me.

“No” I state humbly.

He moves from his armchair to the book cabinet, slides a book out, opens it and pulls a picture out from the inside cover, replacing the book. He hands me the picture and sits back in the chair.

I look at the picture. A soldier’s face, his helmet hangs on his head, askew. He has a vacant look in his eyes, as if he is looking straight through the camera, beyond the eyes of the person viewing the photo. His jaws hang limply, his lips parted lightly. Vacant, but focussed. Ignorant, yet somehow enlightened. The battle-weary soldier’s expression tells a story of something beyond terror, beyond dread. His expression, or rather the lack of it, cuts into me like a knife. I am transfixed, and cannot look away.



“The man you are looking at died the day after that photo was taken. The only things that remain of him in the mortal world, are that photo, his knife-etched signature, and my living testament to his courage.” He coughs heavily into his handkerchief.



He had told me before about how he and his friends had all etched their names into the pewter cup that slotted onto the bottom of his favourite hipflask, right before they went over the top of the wall into no-man’s land.

“The stare is one of tragedy, despair, and yet it is beautiful in many ways.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, glancing up briefly, before returning my gaze to this picture.

“The thousand yard stare is one of detachment, freedom from the constraints of fear.” He explains.

“He has experienced hell, and through it all, he has reached a state that most men will never reach.” He coughs heavily again.

“But most men, to reach this state, must divorce themselves of almost everything that makes them human. Many cannot function, many become depressed, many become psychotic.” He continues.

“But this man, my best friend. Having seen the worst horrors imaginable, continued to fight bravely, and died an honourable man.”

He said, as a tear crept from the side of his eye and trickled down his face.

“When they hit us with a mustard gas attack, I was taken off the front line. I survived with nothing more than a bad cough.”



“Granddad” I say humbly, “I hear these things you talk about, and the bravery humbles me. But I worry that I’ll never be as brave as you. I’m still very shy, I worry about things too much, I’ve never even been in a fight.”

He holds his hipflask in his hand, looks at the names carved into the base, unscrews the top and pours a small amount of whisky into the pewter cup.



“James” He says, looking me straight in the eye, “One day you will be a great man, a brave man. You will conquer any fears you have, and lead others to confront their own.” He drinks the whisky from the pewter cup.

“Stare into the eyes of your fear, stand your ground, and don’t back down.” He explains, “On that day, you will pay tribute to all the soldiers, whose names are written on this flask. On that day, you will drink from this flask with pride.”



Later that night, I lay in bed, staring bleakly at the ceiling. The war seems almost like fiction to a young man like me, I hold the whole period in awe and reverence, but it remains intangible, as if it never really happened. It’s only on nights like tonight, when he talks in depth about the people he knew, and the horrors he experienced, that it feels so real. Afterwards, I am always left with the sour aftertaste of weakness I feel about myself. I am thinking about the trenches. What would I have done? It’s impossible to tell. I close my eyes tightly, and try to imagine the roar of machine guns and shells falling silent. Poised, waiting for the whistle to blow, and at that moment, climbing into no-man’s land. That push from danger, to certain death.



I can almost feel the cold mud, hear the suffering, smell the smoke. I inhale deeply through my nose, and a thin illusory scent of smoke invades my nostrils. I breathe out through my mouth, imagining my last moments, prepared, but never ready, to take that final plunge. I inhale once more, and the scent of smoke is far thicker.



I open my eyes with a start. The smell is real.

I quickly jump out of my bed, acutely aware of the smoke slowly filling my room. I rush out through the door, following the trail as it get’s thicker, tracking the source. As I reach the living room, the smoke is far denser. The front door glows from the letter box, as a thick trails of soot climbs up the door, blackening the ceiling above.



I rush into the kitchen and fill a pot with as much water as it will carry, and carefully but hastily carry it through to the living room. I tip it across the door as my eyes begin to sting from the smoke. The fire sizzles out.



I turn the key in the lock, burning my fingers. I persevere and open the front door, allowing the smoke to escape. I leap down the steps onto the pavement to escape the smoke, and look across to the pub across the road. It is closed.

I notice a hooded figure, tucked away around the side of the pub.

This is my moment.

I run across the road, and the figure retreats, rushing off around the corner. I give chase, but as I turn the corner, I see that he has stopped in the middle of the road.



He is looking right at me, and in his hand he holds a knife, which he slowly raises in the air, pointing it towards me.



“Come on step closer and I’ll fucking stab you.” He shouts, snarling at me like a rabid beast.

I am paralyzed with fear, and instinctively back away.

The figure turns once more, and flees into the night.



I run back into the house, as the smoke begins to clear somewhat.

I make my way towards his room. As I push the door open, I see him crouched on the floor, coughing violently against the smoke.





In the hospital bed, his perennial cough, which I’d become so accustomed to, cut through me like a knife. With each cough, splatters of thick black liquid shot from his lips and dribbled down his chin. The oxygen mask had become tinted a light brown from the expulsions.



I held his hand, and his grip, still strong, became tighter with every lung spasm. But each day I visited him, his grip became softer, and his skin paler.



Everything that has ever happened, was destined to happen, and there can be no doubt, no matter what the odds, that such an event would occur. A dying man is destined to die. To me, he was already dead, and I was stuck in an earthly limbo, watching this strong, beautiful man, fade into death. And I could do nothing.



Though he could say very little, the fibrillations of his palm told me more than he could explain verbally. I could pinpoint the exact time that he surrendered to fate. A tiny, almost undetectable change in his movements, where he stopped fighting the inevitable, and gave himself totally to death. From that point on, he never said a word. He took half a minute between breaths, then a full minute. After some time, his infrequent inhales became entirely erratic, as though his body was gasping involuntarily, for air. The following exhales became gurgled, as though his lungs were slowly filling with fluid. It must have been two minutes without a breath before the death rattle confirmed his passing.





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