The Soldier's Clothes

She held the soldier’s head in her hands as he died. His dirty brown hair was damp with cold sweat and his face was caked with layers of dust and blood. But his blue eyes, which were as clear as a cloudless day, were still wide open.

She had nearly tripped over him coming out of the woods near the Murphy farmhouse. After walking alone for weeks, she was lost in thought, distracted. Her inner voice humming louder in her head, bemoaning the series of bad decisions she'd made, opportunities—and people—lost, where she might go next. Her mind was flooded with the faces of so many people who had been killed or captured along the way. The nagging question of how she always managed to survive ate at her constantly. She'd even begun to attempt a rational answer: "A mixture of luck and intuition," she reasoned. It helped that she knew this land better than most. The remote back trails and hidden spots to lay low during the day. The hunting shacks and animal caves to hide out in at night. But that hadn't helped anyone else who'd been with her. She always ended up alone. And those safety options were becoming fewer and farther between as the scavengers began to grow in numbers.

When she saw the old house through the trees, one that she had visited a thousand times as a kid, she was so overcome by the pull of home that she practically stepped on him under the pull to get inside. They had surprised each other, really. He was laying on the muddy ground, legs extended, back leaning against a large rusted tractor wheel, staring directly at her, wide eyed, gasping lowly, trying to speak. His stained and threadbare camouflage uniform blended seamlessly into the swampy backdrop.

"Careless," she chastised herself for not seeing him. She approached him cautiously. But when she saw the gash in his neck and the pool of blood beneath him, she knew he was no threat to her or anyone else. She knelt down and placed her tattered coat behind his head, trying to provide him some comfort in his last few minutes. Even underneath all the dirt she could tell he was young. He stared up at her, still trying to form words but could only choke out a dry cough now and again. His gaze never left hers. Those blue eyes wide and anxious, as if he recognized her. He tried to lift a feeble hand. To point or grab hold of her? She wasn't sure, but it quickly fell back to the soggy ground.

Finally, after a few last seconds, he was still. She knew he was gone without even having to check for a pulse. That’s how familiar with death she had become over the years. The face it left on its victims was unmistakable. One second twisted with despair. The next calm. Relaxed. Resigned. As if life’s great secret had finally been revealed in passing: living was the real battle and death the preferred state of things all along.

And like every other dead person she had encountered along this exhausting journey, she took a few moments (though she noticed it was fewer and fewer as time went by) to consider him. His life. His struggles. His journey to this spot. The family, friends, and colleagues he had lost since the disease and then the war had ravaged them all. She wished they could have shared even just a few words together.

Then she did what she knew she must. But going through a dead man's pockets never got easier. To her it always felt like scavenging. Like an insult … even a desecration. She reminded herself that he would probably want her to have whatever scraps he still held onto. That he would want her to live if he could not. To continue on searching for solace in this shattered world.

But this was a soldier. Or at least he wore soldier’s clothes. And that remote part of her that still managed to register hope perked up a bit. Empathy gave way to a nagging tug of selfish excitement. As damaged and destitute as he appeared, his uniform faded and filthy, he still might have on him things that she could desperately use.

She patted him down. Then slowly started to open the pockets of his shirt. In one there was a half smoked cigarette. In another, the worn down nub of a pencil. Then his pants. In the right front pocket he had two quarters and a penny, neither of which held any value anymore. She dug around in other pockets but found no wallet nor keys nor any form of identity on him. No food, no medical supplies. No weapon. Worst of all, no information about—nor directions to—someplace safe. He was truly a ghost. And a useless one at that.

She stood up to leave, turning her thoughts to the farmhouse and what she might be able to find there. Water, hopefully, and if there was ever any kind of god, a bath and some clean clothes. Maybe even some of that paint thinner Mr. Murphy brewed up was left over. But something stopped her. She hadn’t come in contact with another person (who hadn't tried to harm her) in months, and who knows when she might again. When she looked back down at him, she noticed that his right hand was clutched in a tight fist. His dirty, scabbed up fingers clasped in a death grip, as if ready to throw a final desperate punch.

Maybe it was the look on his face when he died that seemed to be trying to say something. An urgent attempt to communicate, not just to another human being, but to her in particular. Whatever the reason, she bent back down to the man and took his fist in her hands.

His grip was firm, but after some time she managed to pry his fingers apart. In his open palm he held a gold heart shaped locket, as clean and shiny as the day it was made. The shock of seeing this gleaming jewel, so brilliant in the late day sun, and so out of place in the squalid world surrounding it, overwhelmed her into stillness.

When she gathered herself, she reached to grab the locket. A long gold chain unraveled from his hand as she picked it up. She placed it in her own rough and cracked palm and regarded it in wonder for what seemed like hours. Only then did she decide to open it. The latch unclasped smoothly without a sound.

What stunned her most wasn’t the picture of the woman, the face pretty and determined, eyes sharp and stoic, the brown hair streaked with just the hint of gray gathered around her ivory collar bones. No, what made her gasp aloud and fall back dizzily against the tractor tire, supporting herself on her elbows beside the dead soldier, was the unmistakable knowledge that this older and wiser face, staring back at her through time, was her very own.