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Robin
Saltonstall
short
story writer
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short
story
In
Cold Blood .../
continued
When Slowly, so
slowly that I feel only that it is not
happening, I come back - from where, to
where - this I don't know. Am I alive? Can
I be alive? Or is this hell?
I cannot see. There is a red blur across
my eyes. I cannot see.
But there is a red blur. Can I be - can it
be - can it be that I am still alive?
Now I smell the cordite, the smoke from
the gun. It is bad egg, gritty, and half
sweet; I am tasting it too. I can smell, I
can taste, so I must be alive.
I try to move my head. I feel a cold
jelly-like wetness pressing on my face.
Something has blocked my ears. I hear only
what rubs, scrapes, slithers, against my
head, and, since the shot, the explosion,
a loud ringing noise. I remember the
bright, white, light blue of that
explosion, then the red orange darting
fire and the vicious crack, and a terrible
jolting and thud in the mess that now lies
above me.
But I - I am alive.
Finally I move my head. First I can only
move it so slightly that I wonder whether
it has moved at all; then the weight of
the cold lumpy wetness dribbles and
slides, dough-like, off, and away from, my
face. The terrible smell lessens. The red
blur has gone. I see that it is almost
dark.. Smoke hangs in thin layers in the
air.
The ringing in my ears subsides. Now, but
briefly, I hear, again, that engine's
snarl and roar; and the cranky, clanky,
squeaking, moaning protestations of its
huge metal tracks. Yet now, even as I
listen, it lessens, grows fainter, and -
yes - now it has gone, it has faded
away.
There is silence. I hear, smell, death and
look for it in the shadows. Something, I
know not what (and am glad) slides,
hesitates, slides again, from my face. It
slops, plops, but gently, like the dung
from the camel as it slurps to the
sand.
A pattering - I hear a pattering. First it
was there; now it has gone; now it is
louder - and back.. I am no longer alone
with the dead. A shadowy figure has
appeared, stooping, then running, through
one of the holes in the wall. The figure
is quick - darting - there's a loose
flowing robe. More shadows appear. I hear
their voices. I know these voices, this
language. They are mine. They are
'ours'.
I try to move. I try to speak. I manage
only a dry croak, little more than a
cough. Suddenly they are there, their
hands all around me. I feel the dead
weight that has pinioned and imprisoned
me, jolt, move upwards, and away to one
side.
I feel the spout of a bottle as it is
placed between my lips. I drink, slurp
noisily, drink more. The sweet cool water
gushes into, and out of, my mouth. Then,
with help, some water goes down my
throat.
I try to speak. They hush me:
'Do not try to move. Do not try to speak.
The others are dead. But you - you are
alive.'
How much time has gone? I don't know. I
cannot remember. They tell me I fainted
away when they moved me. Now my legs are
in plaster, each one broken, but cleanly,
by the bullets: ' You will stay alive'
they tell me 'and your legs will heal -
you will be able to live. You can, and
will, still be you.' I turn away, hot
tears burn my cheeks, I weep for my
friends that are dead and that I will not
see again.
Much later I watch the TV. The infidels
have committed a great disgrace and are
shamed. All Islam, the world, is talking
of it. The infidels have shot a helpless
and wounded man and it was filmed, is now
on TV, everywhere, and for everyone to
see. I see again jagged holes in a
white-painted mud wall, bodies on a bare
earthen floor, charred wood, a smoke
blackened roof.
I know that man, that man who 'they'
shot.
When the infidels had arrived I'd been
under his, that man's body, and
surrounded, hidden from view, by the
bodies of the other dead. I'd held my
breath for as long as I could. Finally I
could hold my breath no longer. I pushed
up at the head of the body that lay there
- above mine.
'This one's not dead'; then the crash and
flash of the shot; the awful jolt to that
other head, that dead head, lying on
mine.
' He is now!'
* * * * * *
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