“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.”—Alan Watts
A young man in his green uniform slumps down at the bench of a bus stop on 4th street. He is not used to the hardness of wood that is well-formed and factory-made. There are places made of soft, wet earth in the wilds of an ancient country that the young man has spent the last eight months laying on, and with a new kind of repulsive nostalgia the young man half wishes to feel it again. In the face of the townhouses lined up prettily in front of him he feels as if that place might again become something reported on the six o’clock news, and not something he had breathed, had built up and destroyed utterly.
He recalls a day in the jungle when the sun set over Tra Bong and it was not the fire of napalm but of a gold sun hitting green water, a heaven in purgatory. The air was hot and smelled like mud and behind and in front of him the boys of his platoon were singing Dean Martin, and he hummed along, Non dimenticar, non dimenticar…
When his mother and father arrange a party for his homecoming, the fireworks fall over Lake Matakwa like VC rockets on China Beach. His kid brother Pete is there, the ghost of a laughing marine who has fled the world in a helicopter. His girlfriend Donna is the Vietnamese mother who looks over the skeleton of a burned hut and does not see a war, but an apocalypse where the horsemen are VC and GI both, working in perfect tandem.
They all belong in between death and life, even the ones who come home. As he sits on the bench, the soldier believes he has known both better than he ever wished to know.
I really liked the description in this short story. You did an excellent job of portraying the soldier's emotions towards the Vietnam War, while incorporating aspects of the time (a song by Dean Martin) to make it feel that much more authentic. I feel like this story has a lot of potential if you were to expand on it and create a larger work.
ReplyDeleteVERY compelling. I'm all about the constant use of imagery that puts me in the scene. War stories have a soft spot in my heart with Vietnam veterans as family members. Actually would like to see it lengthened out a little more with more background and action.
ReplyDeleteI really like the "a heaven in purgatory". The line captures the feeling that we all often have of finding something supremely beautiful in something awful. I love the scent imagery. I wish there was a little more about the actual situation, of which you paint well.
ReplyDeletethis is an incredible piece! i definitely felt the impact and strength of it by the time i had reached the end. although your main character's experience is unfamiliar to most of us, you still portray his emotions and perceptions in a way that is easy to relate to. your descriptions make this story quite beautiful, despite the dark subject matter. i also ADORED the epigraph you chose! i was taught this idea in a much less elegant way (a number of months ago at a buddhist temple) and have found it to be a very true and healthy way to approach time and presence.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Remi. I really like the heaven line. It's a pointed.The imagery is amazing.
ReplyDeleteTry using active verbs in the first paragraph rather than "he is..."there are...", and I'm not sure about "repulsive nostalgia," an interesting oxymoron but still an abstraction. This really gets going in the second paragraph--good details, images. This recollection is of course the past, and the homecoming party seems to be the present--given the Watts epigraph, you need some gesture towards the future. A good draft.
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