Echo’s End

I hear my own voice, urgent, loud, beseeching.  And I hear its forlorn echo, as if mocking me.

“Help!  Help me!”

…help me!

“I am over here!  I am hurt bad!”

…hurt bad!

“Please!  Help me!  Somebody!  Anybody!”

…anybody!

All around me is the gray fog of late afternoon, lit eerily by faint flashes of light, each followed closely by the rumble of distant artillery.  I am screaming now.

“I am here, over here!  I need help!

…need help!

No one comes.  It is as if I am alone on this monstrous battlefield where, only moments ago, hundreds of men, nay thousands, swarmed toward one another.  Where are they?

“Where are you?  I need help!  I am shot to pieces!”

…to pieces!

“I know someone is out there!  Please!  I need help now!”

…help now!

The dampness seeps into my bones.  I taste the bitter cordite clinging to the fog…smell the swampy decay, the miasma of the battlefield, of the trench…feel the cold, sucking muck that binds me to the ground.  But I cannot feel my legs, nor see them in the gloom.

“For God’s sake!  Somebody help me!  I am dying here!”

…dying here!

Far off, I hear the crisp pop and crackle of musketry, and an insistent bugle horn demanding advance—or maybe retreat.  I no longer care.

“Here!  Here!  I am right here!  Right here!”

…right here!

To my right, or perhaps my left, for I cannot see them, men are groaning, calling out in agony, but I do not reply to their pleas.  My own fear is too great to be concerned with theirs.

“Michigan, 7^th Michigan!  I am here, comrades, I am right here!  Do not leave me, comrades!”

…comrades!

The pain grows stronger, my voice weaker, but my voice is all I have left.  I want to go home, but home is so far away from this God-forsaken patch of dirt in Virginia.

“Mama!  Mama!  I am sorely hurt, Mama!  It is bad!”

…is bad!

The echo of my voice is changing now, sounding less like me, sounding more like…like one familiar, yet far removed.

“Come fetch me, Mama!  Come get me, for I fear I am going to die!”

…to die!

“Do not leave me here alone!  I need help, I need succor!

…need succor!

I want to stand up and run, to get away from here.  I want to go home, leave this foul war behind, know peace again.  And most of all right now, I want surcease from the pain tearing remorselessly at my innards. 

My voice has become but a whisper, barely audible through great, gurgling breaths, each threatening to be the last.

“Mama, I am feelin’ real low.  I am all alone here.  I want to come home.”

The distant rifles have fallen silent now.  I hear no bugle horns blowing their quavering calls.  The gathering darkness is lit no more by flashes of far-off cannon.  And I no longer hear my pitiful echo.

Instead, I hear the voice of my dear, departed mother, the last voice I shall ever hear, echoing down the years.

…home, sonny-boy.  You’re home.   

_{© J. Bradley Burt 2020}