A reminder
Oct. 23rd, 2009 06:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdLeave a comment here or at my Facebook Fangroup to be entered for a copy of Shell-Shocked. Drawing will be Monday, Oct 25.
Also, to be eligible for the grand prize paperback drawing at the end of the year, you must comment on all First Page Friday posts.
Shell-Shocked
From Pink Petal Press
Buy it here, $4.95
The Humvee bounced along the rutted, shell-pocked road to Baghdad. Heat shimmers on the sand made the distant date palm grove look like a mirage. They'd been joking that camels and flying carpets would be faster, while drinking water gone hot out of canteens and keeping their eyes open.
The IED had looked like a shredded tire.
Sean woke, sweating, reaching for the M-16 he'd turned in two years before. He finished the automatic reaction by reaching for his glasses instead. He sat in the dark of his apartment, on an ancient Murphy bed, collecting his wits with the litany he’d always used. "I am Sean Michael Dempsey. I was medically discharged in Germany on 15 August 2005. I live in New York. Baghdad is on the other side of the world."
He repeated it four times, about what it usually took for that particular nightmare. Others took more, or fewer, repetitions. Dreaming about the pretty little Iraqi whore who'd cost him his kneecaps and had earned him that discharge usually took at least seven or eight repetitions—ten on really bad nights.
Sean got up and stretched, feeling the tight skin of his scarred and grafted legs flex, and the metal joints within work. He imagined rusting up like the Tin Man some day, even though he knew the knees were aluminum. He was very damned lucky. His dad had lost an arm in Vietnam, and most of his grandfather's friends had war wounds of some kind from the Second World War. He was lucky he wasn't a double amputee in a wheelchair.
He'd seen a guy like that last week at the neighborhood clinic where the VA had sent his PTSD meds. A cute long-haired guy about his age, maybe a bit younger, who'd sent him a couple smiles when he was caught looking. Sean hadn't had the nerve to ask where the guy had served, or if it was just diabetes, the sugar as so many of the poor called it. Poor, they were all poor in this neighborhood, but able to afford food, even if it was the empty processed garbage that gave them the sickness. He'd seen really poor and had done his share of both causing and alleviating it.
The clock said four in the morning. There wouldn't be any more sleep tonight. Sean flopped out on the creaky old relic the landlord called a sofa and turned on Freaks. He loved the new DVD print of his favorite old movie. It always made him feel better. Most movies did, if they were comedy or monster movies. He hated thrillers and anything with a lot of gunfire or blood. Damn shame. He'd always liked action movies before the war.
Seeing half his squad get it on patrol and then surviving a barracks bomb had kind of killed that pleasure. The bomb had happened only because some over-eager horny jackass had thought with his cock. He hoped the suicide girl got her seventy-two cabana boys and they were all gay.
He puttered around, determined not to think about the war. He made coffee and read a couple of chapters of the Zane Grey novel he was plowing through. Sean waited for sunrise.
At six, he showered. By six-fifteen, he was dressed. Before seven, he had eaten breakfast and cleared out all his computer stuff for the morning. At seven sharp, he cracked his knuckles and started typing.
***
Remember, comment to be entered for a copy of this.
Also, to be eligible for the grand prize paperback drawing at the end of the year, you must comment on all First Page Friday posts.
Shell-Shocked
From Pink Petal Press
Buy it here, $4.95
The Humvee bounced along the rutted, shell-pocked road to Baghdad. Heat shimmers on the sand made the distant date palm grove look like a mirage. They'd been joking that camels and flying carpets would be faster, while drinking water gone hot out of canteens and keeping their eyes open.
The IED had looked like a shredded tire.
Sean woke, sweating, reaching for the M-16 he'd turned in two years before. He finished the automatic reaction by reaching for his glasses instead. He sat in the dark of his apartment, on an ancient Murphy bed, collecting his wits with the litany he’d always used. "I am Sean Michael Dempsey. I was medically discharged in Germany on 15 August 2005. I live in New York. Baghdad is on the other side of the world."
He repeated it four times, about what it usually took for that particular nightmare. Others took more, or fewer, repetitions. Dreaming about the pretty little Iraqi whore who'd cost him his kneecaps and had earned him that discharge usually took at least seven or eight repetitions—ten on really bad nights.
Sean got up and stretched, feeling the tight skin of his scarred and grafted legs flex, and the metal joints within work. He imagined rusting up like the Tin Man some day, even though he knew the knees were aluminum. He was very damned lucky. His dad had lost an arm in Vietnam, and most of his grandfather's friends had war wounds of some kind from the Second World War. He was lucky he wasn't a double amputee in a wheelchair.
He'd seen a guy like that last week at the neighborhood clinic where the VA had sent his PTSD meds. A cute long-haired guy about his age, maybe a bit younger, who'd sent him a couple smiles when he was caught looking. Sean hadn't had the nerve to ask where the guy had served, or if it was just diabetes, the sugar as so many of the poor called it. Poor, they were all poor in this neighborhood, but able to afford food, even if it was the empty processed garbage that gave them the sickness. He'd seen really poor and had done his share of both causing and alleviating it.
The clock said four in the morning. There wouldn't be any more sleep tonight. Sean flopped out on the creaky old relic the landlord called a sofa and turned on Freaks. He loved the new DVD print of his favorite old movie. It always made him feel better. Most movies did, if they were comedy or monster movies. He hated thrillers and anything with a lot of gunfire or blood. Damn shame. He'd always liked action movies before the war.
Seeing half his squad get it on patrol and then surviving a barracks bomb had kind of killed that pleasure. The bomb had happened only because some over-eager horny jackass had thought with his cock. He hoped the suicide girl got her seventy-two cabana boys and they were all gay.
He puttered around, determined not to think about the war. He made coffee and read a couple of chapters of the Zane Grey novel he was plowing through. Sean waited for sunrise.
At six, he showered. By six-fifteen, he was dressed. Before seven, he had eaten breakfast and cleared out all his computer stuff for the morning. At seven sharp, he cracked his knuckles and started typing.
***
Remember, comment to be entered for a copy of this.
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no subject
Date: 2009-10-25 03:29 am (UTC)