Scar

I was young then. A young man, perhaps a different man. As I walk down the hall of my home I feel the ache and the slowness and I remember what being that young man was like. That easy movement. That strength. Now I am paltry, and tattered. I hang from my bones and my bones are weak. I lower myself slowly into my armchair. The fire glows and the wood cracks and I remember that time.

It was not my war, but I was elite amongst my compatriots and I had been called to fight on behalf of another man's cause. Because that other man did not have the capacity. Because that other man had enemies that were too great for him to fight and his cause was just. Yes. It was just. I believe it be so. I do not know what that young man thought. Perhaps nothing. No, that's not right. I was a soldier. I had my pride, my narcissism. We all did. We had been chosen to slay giants. None of us knew why, none of us cared why. I remember a crying face and hands clinging to my knee and the repeated sobbing thanks. I remember that young man not caring but now, now it is the memory I treasure most. As I sit here in my agony and my desperation for the warmth of the fire to bring some relief I remember and I remember those tears and if I could still cry I would cry with that man for that memory is proof that my youth had been spent well.

Chosen to slay giants. No one said that, but it was what we believed. I laugh about it sometimes, the way we mythologised our enemies so that when we killed them, and we knew we would kill them, our acts would be that much greater. I remember how and when that myth was broken. The way we had stood around that great body and watched silently as she had died. She had not looked at any of us, just the sky. Later one of us, maybe Collins, had said she had died with dignity. Now I do not think there is much dignity in death.

To kill is to reveal your own mortality. I know this now and with each new tatter I know it with greater clarity. That young man had not understood, just felt that hollowness that could not be filled only salved. A wound that leaves a scar. I knew men and women who cherished their scars, the sensation of wounding that told them that they were alive. They are all gone now. Only I remain. I know. I know and I remember.

They killed us, too. They were made for it in ways that even the machines were not. They had the machines anyway. The controlled the battlefield the same way we did. I remember the rumours and lies and racist caricatures of their culture and the conclusions that it was these stories of children all bloody in the snow and berserker fugue states and raw meat that accounted for their success. We created the distinction, that we were constrained by civility and they had given into savagery. And so we were the better even if our victories were fewer. Our technology was of our own genesis, theirs was the cast-offs of the gods. And so we were the better even if our victories were fewer. I wonder now if they told these stories. Of course. All soldiers do. It was easier that way. I can do it no longer.

The paper of my eyelids parts and I am looking at the medal. My son had found it and decided that it should be here, sitting above the fire that is my only comfort. Like all fathers I was his hero until he grew and then his hero again when he discovered that story of my youth. So the medal must be here, it must not be hidden away. My daughter had said otherwise by my son was adamant and I could not bear to see them fight and so I had allowed it. And here it is, the heart of my heroism the highest honour all we have to give you. Awarded only for the greatest acts of valour and self-sacrifice. That is what they say. They award them so rarely now, so they do not become devalued. So that every new recipient can be presented to the world as Caesar, as Beowulf. As I was. They had pinned the medal to my chest and they had told a story and some parts of that story were true but some of them were not. But I remember that time.

The battlefield was tired. We were all tired. We had entered that war believing that we could end it, that our technology and our training and our money could reshape the battlefield as it had done before. We had not understood the geometries of that conflict and though I do not regret going to their aid I know that my only purpose was to kill others like me. They could no more change the shape of that war than we. Their tradition allowed them to serve as mercenaries from time to time, and that is why they were there. We acted in support of our allies but concerned ourselves without own ideology. We did not understand those we fought with, or why they fought. I remember the crying man and try to tell myself that it did not matter but it does.

It went on too long. We were too far away. I could not return home until it was over but there was no sign of ending and so the people slowly abandoned us. Yet we still could not leave. We had to achieve something, something we could call a victory. Slay the giants. But the giants always seemed to have the advantage. I know now that their situation had been desperate for a long time, that they had made a mistake early and that it had assured their defeat. It had not seemed that way. Whatever illusion there was eventually fell away and in that moment we pressed what advantage we had and we killed them and drove them back and killed them again and it seemed that we were the giants. We were the giants and the blood we payed seemed trifling. I remember that time. I was the tip of the spear. Collins was there, I remember. And Major Weeks and Penvise who we called Pelvis because her hips were so shapely even beneath the armour and the gear. Other men, other women. Names that exist at the periphery of my memory and faces that are clothed in mist. We were all there together and we killed and we died and we made a mistake. We pushed her too far and she came for us.

I remember the hotel, the Terminus and I remember the dust swirling in the shaft of cold sun and the broken teeth of the tall windows and the sweeping staircase and the upturned marble of the floor. We had covered the door and I had turned away and Collins had said something and I cannot remember what he said and it pains me because it was the last thing. She was there in the door and her cable pulled Collins to her from across the lobby and she broke his neck mid-stride and when I raised my gun and fired she threw my friend back to me. I gouged out new wounds into the ground but achieved nothing and my gun was a dead weight and I snapped it in half because I knew my comrades had nothing to spare and I did not want to leave it. If only Collins' gun had fallen at my feet.