Life in Technicolor – Part IV
By Brandon Palzkill
A haze drifted between the trees,
while he observed
the menacing silence,
bracing for the coming storm.
Dug in deep, locked and loaded,
he took a steady breath;
the last he’d get for days…
possibly forever.
He sat in a hastily dug hole,
up to his ODs in loose dirt
like a pig wallowing
in his own soiled sty;
little more than half a grave,
where someone could top
him off with a shovel,
should things take a turn
for the worse.
His thoughts drifted to his lady
and to far better days,
when they sat together in that
hospital room,
sharing dizzy daydreams
of where their roads
might someday lead them,
and planning to travel
together.
A sudden flash forewent a crash
and memory lane
had been demolished,
exploding in a choking cloud
of earth and limbs;
the fireworks had begun,
though not to be greeted
with thunderous applause,
but bloodcurdling shrieks.
A hand with no owner
patted him on the stomach
and the man beside him
went sick with disgust.
A terrible burst
chased the orphaned hand,
and a sudden spurt of warm,
sticky crimson mist
splashed upon his face,
like the spray of the summer
ocean.
He was surprised,
but no more than his fellow;
and clutching
the gushing wound in his neck.
His comrade looked shocked,
then looked bewildered,
before looking vacantly
into the void;
the empty shell of himself.
He felt an icy chill
flood his churning stomach
until it reached his heart,
but frost was soon replaced by fire,
not born of the surrounding
bombardment’s flame,
but from the spark of fury
that quickly blazed
into a raging inferno.
The world became red to his eyes
and his vengeful hands shook,
but his rifle became resolute
as he slew scores of foes
with the twitch of his finger.
As he fired his metal savagery
into the flesh of those
he sought to slay.
He spat and swore
and screamed his bellowing roar
of Barbaric bloodlust;
a cry to haunt
his falling targets.
He shot ‘til there were none
to shoot,
and fired ‘til he had no
rounds to fire.
Yet even in emptiness,
he did but squeeze the trigger
of his spent rifle,
for while the battle had ended,
his fury lingered on,
never to be sated.
