You see, I am perfectly fine

By: Mark de Silva

By Mark Marchenko.

Others, before going there, were afraid of being maimed — by a bullet or a shell splinter — making them unfit for further fighting. Or else they were afraid of dying. I, though, was mostly worried about whether I would be able to see what I would have to see, do what I would have to do, and still, somehow, remain sane.

It was the whole concept that scared me. When, let’s say, a bullet runs you down, there is nothing you can do about it, except hope for the best. At least, though, catching something heavy and swift and made of metal with your soft and unreliable body isn’t shameful: on the contrary, it has potential to elevate your social status, and, if you are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, it can even make you a hero, even if just for a bit, before you pass on.

On the other hand, there is nothing heroic in saying farewell to your cuckoo’s nest, if you get what I mean; going bonkers won’t make you look heroic, since it is considered, somehow, your fault, unlike catching a bullet with your bloody, ill-fated face. Although, if you ask me, I have no clue how to dodge either one of those misfortunes. And if, in the case of a bullet flying in your direction, you can sometimes shield yourself from it by means of not fucking forgetting to put plates in your plate carrier, how do you protect yourself from catching shell shock? No idea.

But people consider this to be a sign of your weakness: your brain going off after you saw or did something, I mean. And if that happens, beyond people privately assigning all the responsibility to you, a victim, where would you even go for help? A lunatic asylum? Fuck if I go there and confess to everyone, “I am too weak even to keep my shit together.” Would you ever be able to trust a person who did that? You’re not old enough to answer this question, but believe me when I say: no.

So thanks very much, but if after everything is over (or worse — when it’s not even over yet), I prove incapable of staying sane, it’s all going to be my problem: I’ll bear the responsibility for solving the problem, and how better to “solve it” than by just biting the bullet until my pathetic life is over, right? I guess it’s all the books we read when we’re young; I blame them for my fear of insanity. All those gentlemen — Dos Passos, Remarque, Hemingway — writing about people returning from there going so mental that either they drank themselves to death or blew their brains out with their father’s shotguns. When you read these books, you learn that we all lose it if we manage to survive going there, which means there’s no real way to live sanely with what happened — so we are as good as dead anyway.

But, you see, this leads to a curious paradox. If you end up dying either way, in a sense, then why should you be afraid of dying in the most gallant way possible — on the battlefield, like that guy, General Thomas something, who said, and I remember these words exactly, because that is how I’d like my death to be served, he said, “Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.” Under the shade of the trees! Much better than slowly mentally dissolving because you were undone by what happened to you, or, you know, by what you made to happen to others.

And one more thing, the most important of them all! How can you go insane if what you did was righteous, and noble, and for a just cause? You really shouldn’t go nuts in that case. So — follow my lead — if you, after all, do go nuts, then it must, people assume, be something you personally did wrong. It is you who did something that you shouldn’t have done: an atrocity! So not only are you left alone with your own crazy thoughts, but everyone will be suspicious about what you really did out there. You can forget about any sort of normal life after that.

When I finally came here, the first few days I was constantly checking myself, checking what was going on in my mind. Was it still even there? Still operating in its normal mode? Still functioning as a whole? Truth be told, when I’d got under my first artillery shelling, I had some slight doubt about my ability to outlast it without its taking a toll on my mind that was, let’s say, a little bit too severe for my taste. We were on our way back to the base, trampling through a small and rather rare forest when one of us heard a few mortar shots. All at once we threw ourselves to the ground, heads covered with palms. After the first few shells landed, our senior announced that they were 120mm.

Powerful as fuck. We were very lucky our opponent didn’t use a drone for aim, so the shells landed about seventy or eighty meters to the left of us. We didn’t wait for the next salvo, though. I was never so fast, running to our next position, loaded with thirty kilos of armor and ammunition.

My main trouble, when we got back, was my mind. I mean, I was worried if anything changed in me after the incident. I certainly didn’t feel anything particularly strange, but hell if I know what exactly turning barmy feels like. So, to check my hypothesis and confirm I was fine, I stepped forward right away for the very next mission. Somebody asked me, what’s wrong with you, but here is the trick: nothing was wrong with me, I was perfectly fine. And you know what? Well, we got another portion of 120mm, this time laid down slightly to our right. Those imbeciles still couldn’t even aim properly.

As I’ve said, to hell with staying alive — staying sane was my goal. So I was bursting with euphoria when I proved to myself that that my mind wasn’t going crazy after getting under those two shellings. The next time I had reason for worry was when we got caught in the field with Grads — yeah, I know, sounds sickening. Half our group didn’t believe they were going to make it through that field — and they were right, they didn’t! I was the last one to escape, even managing to pull out one of our guys (no idea what his name was). A blast nearby cut his leg in half, so I did what I could — found his tourniquet, put it on his leg (or what was left of it), hooked him by the carabiner on his back and pulled him out of there. It turned out he was shell-shocked as fuck — and there goes your sanity, I thought of this hopeless idiot who was also afraid of dying, I am sure. Let us see how he manages to live now — assuming he didn’t die on the way to the hospital.

As for me — it was a different story. I was completely fine. I was wearing my Sordins; I’m not so fearless, so foolish, as to go without them. And after that . . . well, I realized I was going to be just fine. Never looked back again: my first fully visual kill wasn’t even as hard as some say. Pulled the trigger quick enough, got myself a couple of nice QuikClot® Combat Gauzes afterward to add to my med kit. Later I learned that the guy I hit was still alive for probably thirty minutes afterward, and maybe even when I was frisking him for his gear. Not for long, though.

There followed quite a lot of similar encounters: it’s been six months since I got here, after mobilization, so if you’d like me to bore you with gory details, believe me, I’ve got plenty. But I won’t do that, because you know what? That’s right — both of us would like to stay sane, and while I am quite certain I am in the clear, that nothing could make me loony at this point, I am not so sure about you, honey. After all, they say it’s the sight of mutilated civilian bodies that really gets you, being the last stop before insanity, even for the most cold-hearted of us. But I officially declare it all bullshit — all these books about crazy ex-soldiers — bullshit all the way. I’ve seen it in numbers you will never dream of. Men, women, old ones, fresh ones, boys, girls, killed in one piece, in many pieces, the whole damn Lego family collection caught in between us and them.

Nothing – that’s what I feel! Imagine my surprise, being blessed like this, to stay perfectly sane amid all this bloody fucking mess. Remember that paradox of being afraid of dying? You really shouldn’t be afraid. Death is your ticket out of here, the mad world. So, in a way, what we do over here — shooting at each other, I mean — we give each other a chance at freedom! It’s the gift of sanity, if you will. So here, I say to the others, take these 5.45 rounds, straight from my barrel. It’s much better, really, than slowly sinking into the psychopathic abyss. And you, sir, over there, you as well, the world is a genuinely horrible place: you need people like me, who feel nothing for everything that is happening, who are therefore still capable of gifting freedom to the weaker ones. Because, believe me, you are all going to be there, at the other end of sanity, if not for men like me, granting you release. Quite a heroic way out, mind you! There’s no difference in what patches we are wearing here — we all perform the same noble service.

Right, then — I am talking too much again. I am perfectly fine! So don’t you worry about me, sweetie. And I am sorry I missed the first day you went to school. Look at you, almost a grown up! Study well, and listen to your mommy, because when I come back — and I will come back very soon — you all better be prepared.

Love,

Dad

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Marchenko is a writer of Ukrainian extraction who was born in the Soviet Union and educated in Moscow and in Edinburgh, where he studied Medieval Literature. He writes short fiction both in Russian, his native language, and in English, as well as writes about classical and contemporary literature. Twitter: @marchenkomark

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You see, I am perfectly fine