A Petition to Death

    Under the blazing sun, Private Rogers’ skin knew no sympathy.  No matter how much sun block he applied, his pale skin radiated with pain from the sun’s burn.  This is what he contemplated, on the convoy.  Then the sound he had been dreading since he came to Iraq only a month ago shot through the air; it was the sound of gunfire.
    The shrouded sand people emerged from one of the many non-descript hills of sand to fire off their AKs and would slide into the desert to avoid the mix of M16 and 50 caliber fire.  Providing cover fire with one of the 50 calibers was Private Rogers’ duty.  Now this word, duty, has been chosen specifically for this purpose, because it was not Private Rogers’ job.  No, Private Rogers was the “chemical guy”; the guy who made sure his companies protective masks were in working order, even if he had to beg, borrow, and steal for repair parts, because not even his superior officers took a chemical threat seriously enough.
   
    When I took Private Rhodes, the man who had sat in the same strap that Private Rogers now occupies, a week ago, First Sergeant Biggins began to search for a warm body to take his place.  As you might have guessed, there were none, and so, Private Rogers was placed on Private Rhodes’ strap, inexperienced, and unqualified.
    I apologize, for I have digressed.  As Private Rogers fired back at the sand, he wasn’t thinking of how the hot black metal burned his hands, or even how much his squad needed his cover fire.  His last living thought was that of self-preservation.  It was a thought similar to, “I’m going to die here”.  So it must be said that I took them, not out of disgust of this thought, because all men are faced with this realization upon the moment of their death, but out of compassion for this little pawn in a game with no checkmate possible.  It wasn’t anybody’s fault when the RPG tore into his humvee and exploded.  That is, no one’s fault but my own.
   
    Now, I’ve been around for quite a long time; in ancient Greece I was called Hades, and those who are overly superstitious in Yorkshire call me Padfoot to this day, but I prefer the name of Death much better.  So, it was no surprise to me that these trained “soldiers” fought to keep their souls intact, most fighters will fight for life for some time.  But as a fish flops and jumps around, suffocating in the air humans breathe, these men struggled to live in the ether that would ultimately consume them.  The same ether in which I thrive in, waiting for your end to come.
    One by one, they dissipated, each one losing their life force.  First the commo guy, then the driver, and then the two passengers in the back seat.  But Private Roger’s refused to drown in the ether.  I had a very busy schedule and an agenda to unfold, but this Private Rogers intrigued me greatly.  I approached Bruce and touched his shoulder.  His incessant struggling ended and his eyes opened to see me.  He asked no questions and stared me down with his will.  Finally, he spoke to me.  “I can’t die, you can’t take me yet.  This is now how it ends.”
    I smiled, which doesn’t happen very often in occupation, as you can imagine.  “I do not offer apologies or condolences, Bruce Rogers, you know who I am, and I know for certain, that this is how it ends.”  His façade broke momentarily, if only for a second, but his military training took hold of his spirit, commanding it to submit to its dominion.  I suppose then, it is ironic that, in life, he feared this moment, yet in his current state refused to believe its unfolding.  I would break him, as I break any doomed as he. 

    I touched his shoulder once more and the ether around us took the shapes of his small apartment.  In the dining room, on a shabby table, a notebook formed.  Upon the notebook words formed, beginning with the words “Dear Bruce”.  These words poured out of a pen held by a woman whose slightly swollen belly was beginning to trouble her writing space, and who glowed with the vibrant beauty of a pregnant mother.
    That quivering facade fronted by Bruce began to dissolve, upon seeing his wife write him a letter about how his unborn child was doing.  “She will never get a reply from you.  In fact, the next letter she will receive will be the one announcing your death.  Do you believe it now?”
    The façade crumbled as a bulldozer of anger crashed through.  The heat that welled up inside him burst out upon his skin, and his entire body steamed and smoked as he yelled, “Of course I believe it!  But you can’t take me; I have too much to live for.  I am only nineteen and already, I’m married with a child on the way.  I was going to college to get a degree, and I just rented an apartment just for the two of us, right before the orders came in.”  As I told him before, I was not there to offer apologies or condolences, so I allowed his anger to pass as I stood stoic in front of him, catching the occasional spittle.  “I wasn’t supposed to die!  The National Guard was supposed to help me support my family and pay for college, and I stood a good chance to deploy and serve my country for their help.  Not to die though!”

    Humans seem so strange.  The way they think is quite odd.  You can’t deny me, because I come for everyone.  Yet, here next to me, was a human so determined to not die, that he would try to petition his invulnerability.  “Listen, I don’t care about your miniscule plans!  There are more important and grandiose doings in your world and mine.  You cannot use a chess piece as important as a king if you aren’t a player.  In fact, you are but just a pawn in this game with no check mate.  You were used by your government to, as all wars seem to go, advance a cause not worth the price.”
    The determined will was leaving his eyes.  I watched as he slowly began the fading into the ether.  He winced as the wounds from his corpse began to assault his spirit.  Bloody gashes from shrapnel formed upon his essence, and upon feeling my grip on him he croaked out a plea.  “But can’t a pawn become a queen at the end of its path?  Why am I not allowed to leave my mark on this world?  I beg of you Death, please allow me my retribution against the black king.”
    I was silent, absorbing this retort, contemplating this thought placed upon my board.  There were many flaws in his thinking, much like a novice chess player.  His moves were rash and desperate, focused on his king’s end and not of the intricacies of the game itself.  “Bruce, you must understand that you never made it to the end.  You were a pawn, sacrificed in the middle of the board.  And even if you had reached the opposing end, and were to promote into a queen, you would have been just another piece.  You would have been more difficult to sacrifice, yet still expendable given the current situation.  And, why must you strike back against your own color, Bruce.  Don’t you see it was not I who sacrificed you?  It was those who I oppose, those in your own government who did this to you.  I will pave the way to my goal in the bodies of the sacrificed.  Only through your death, Bruce Rogers, can humans see the futility in war.  And when your black king is draped in the blood of his sacrificial pawns, who will he then turn to?  Eventually, it will end, when he is alone, washing away your sacrifice in a pool of blood.  There will be no pardon for the black king, just as there will be no pardon for you, Bruce.”

    Upon hearing my words, Bruce’s legs began to shake and buckle under the weight of his body.  I see a lot of people cry in my occupation.  To grieve about another’s end is one thing, but to grieve for you own life’s end is tenfold that feeling.  The tears he wept began to stream with blood, his sacrifice for the cause not worth the price, but instead of fading into the ether, his spirit became more focused and defined.  In Bruce’s moment of despair, when most men lose hope, he had reforged his will in the sorrow that consumes them.  Already, the fire and explosion took his body and spirit, but his will was unscathed.  No, it had been strengthened from his death.  He crawled his ravaged spirit toward the ethereal woman and embraced her incorporeal body.  She picked her head up from the letter she was writing, as the hair on the back of her neck prickled at his voice.  “I will always love you” he whispered into her ear.
    Bruce stood, even with his grievous wounds.  He walked up to me and stared me in the face.  “I see now that my piece cannot be cheated back onto the board, and that I will not personally leave my mark on the world.  But by becoming another death, sacrificing myself to be a statistic on the black side, I will show everyone how dying for a cause not worth the cost is as futile as fighting a war, for a cause not worth the price.  With his final word, he dissipated into the ether, not as a fish out of water, but as a fish that fought to get upstream, just to die, spawning a new cause.