The Day the Earth Met the Sky by Pat Ellis

Author:Pat Ellis [Ellis, Pat]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-06-13T23:00:00+00:00

The battle was messy, but went better than Aaron thought it would. The Morandians weren’t as well fortified as rumored; just a small company with some machineguns and a few mortars. Echo, though outnumbered, was better armed and better fed and easily took them out. They returned to the bivouac with few casualties, but they’d lost little Bobby, the draftee. Aaron was more tired than usual. He just wanted to see the stupid cat, but it was nowhere to be found. He wandered into the trees behind camp, where it usually came from, but he couldn’t find it. He wanted to call for it, but realized he’d never given the poor creature a name. “Here kitty-kitty? Fuck…”

He sat in the wet grass, leaning his back against an old, twisted tree, and cried. He felt like shit and he wanted his stupid fucking cat to come home and make him feel better. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. Nothing particularly terrible had happened today, but he’d never felt worse in his life. Maybe he was just tired. Exhausted, with no end in sight. If I could just see the end…

“Aaron? What the hell are you doing? Wanna eat?” The Sarge’s voice came from only a few feet behind him.

He tried to compose himself. but his nose was stuffed and running. “Yeah. Ok.” He stood up quickly and tried to walk past the Sarge, running his hand through his hair to hide his face, but the Sarge grabbed him by the arm and turned him around. He kept his head down.

“What’s wrong with you?” the Sarge said, pushing Aaron’s chin up with his forefinger. The Sarge’s head was wrapped in a bloody bandage and his eyes were still a little glassy, but he smiled easily.

“I dunno man… it’s just a stupid cat…” He broke. It all fell out of his face, right there in front of the Sarge.

He covered his face with his forearm in a vain attempt to hide the damage and turned away, but the Sarge pulled him back, saying, “Come here.” The Sarge enveloped him, holding him tightly against his chest, and said, with a hint of laughter in his voice, “It’s not a stupid cat.”

He was so warm. Aaron returned the embrace, burying his face in the Sarge’s shoulder. Unable to breathe through his nose anymore, he opened his mouth against the Sarge’s bare skin, tasting dried mud, insipid and raw, mixed with rain, salty sweat, and tears. He fought the urge to bite down on the meat at the base of the Sarge’s neck, and cried harder. The Sarge put a hand on the back of his head and gently gripped his hair, which was getting too long. Aaron felt lulled, almost intoxicated, and the tears subsided slowly. As he regained some sense of the moment, he realized this was the first time he’d ever physically felt the Sarge, skin against skin. They’d known each other for almost four years now, but never gotten closer than a pat on the back or a gripped shoulder.

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