UNIT6
The Pasture
Night settled, thick with the acrid
odors of gunpowder and blood.
No moon meant firing at
muzzle flashes, an inexact method
by which to combat one's foe,
but the enemy had no advantage either.
With artillery fire blanketing
the field of battle, Jack had
no opportunity to go to Mike's aid.
He poked his head over
the rim of the trench to
see if he could spot Mike's corpse.
He knew he was dead.
He had heard his scream
of pain when he was hit.
His agonized moans had grown
weaker and less frequent and finally
ceased about ten minutes ago.
The regiment had been under
heavy bombardment for two days,
without respite. He had been
too late to stop Mike
as he propelled himself out
of the foxhole and staggered
as he hit the muddy terrain.
In hindsight, he should have
seen it coming. Mike had
started to break yesterday.
He was becoming bizarre, talking
about his patriotic duty to
expel the enemy from these shores.
Paradoxically, just before he
hopped over the edge of the trench
he scorned the day he had
heeded the call to enlist.
It pained him to realize that
his one friend in this ungodly war
had betrayed him by dying.
Soldiers don't often make friends with
one another, knowing they might die.
He and Mike were different.
They had known each other
since they were children.
Mike was the best man when
Jack and Lily walked down
the aisle just a week before
they left the dock and crossed
the channel to engage the enemy.
Clouds tumbled and overlapped one another
as the wind began to freshen.
It was getting colder now.
The prospect of another night
of rain, or perhaps even snow,
made Jack quiver with dread.
Blood tinged water was beginning
to crust over with ice.
He could feel his toes and
fingers stiffen as the temperature dropped.
Maybe Mike was better off than he.
At least the cold wouldn't
bother him any more.
Suddenly, comets of light began
to streak across the night sky.
They were using flares!
The increased tempo of cannon fire
coming from the left flank,
shattering the earth around them,
could only mean the enemy
had sensed their weakness, and
was coming in for the kill.
They were heading straight
for the underbelly!Jack's rifle misfired.
The whole corps had been issued
new guns a few days before
this campaign had started.
It wasn't long before they discovered
that the alloy used in the barrels
couldn't endure prolonged firing,
causing the shell casings
to adhere in the bore. How could
he repel the enemy without a weapon?
Jack felt a stab of pain
in his right thigh.
The ground around him ruptured.
Jerking from side to side,
he tried to dodge falling rocks
and the clods of dirt
raining down upon him.
He slumped into a prone posture
as he felt himself shoved
from behind by an unknown force
that felt as if it might
have been a racing locomotive.
The last thing he heard,
before his world was overturned,
was a chorus of screams.
“Am I dead? Where am I?
Where is everybody?” Cognitively,
Jack realized he was still functioning
physiologically so that meant
he was still alive, but
for how long? He couldn't move.
Maybe the impact had fractured
his spine and he was paralyzed.
He tried，analytically，to assess
the damage incurred by moving
his limbs, one by one,
in a clockwise direction,
starting with his right arm.
Everything appeared able to be
mobilized but for some reason
he couldn't get up off the ground.
Everything went black again.
Jack led his horse by the reins
as they stepped onto the overpass
bridging the gap between the plateaus.
In the distance, he could see
a twelve point buck grazing
in the pasture, silhouetted against
the waning sunset. Out of nowhere,
a bull came charging across
the meadow toward him. He tried
to run but his feet
were pegged to the bridge.
Drifting in and out of consciousness,
Jack tried to make sense of
what had happened to him.
He seemed to be in a cavity
under the ground. The earth
was compacted on his legs
but he thought he might be
able to rotate his body enough
to make himself a little more comfortable.
Was that a shaft of light
he could see through the groove
between the fingers of his left
hand covering his eyes?
He groped to clear a tiny
bit more space for himself.
The shutters of his consciousness
closed again.The galaxy was
being probed by lunar modules shuttling
between Earth and the other planets.
As a member of a federation of geologists,
Jack and his team had to
follow the seam of ore
to its source, a pasture
on a distant asteroid.
Once again, Jack regained lucidity.
“Wow,” he thought, “that was
like a bad paperback novel
about astronomy!” He sniffed the air.
It was foul with the smell
of death but qualitatively
able to sustain life.
Why was it so quiet?
Was he deaf? Was the battle over?
Was everyone dead? The weight
on his legs was becoming oppressive.
