July 4, 1863 – Kyla at Gettysburg

My vision was blurred by the tears streaming from my eyes. A cool wind chilled my face. I could tell a rainstorm would be moving in soon.

“Kids die all the time, Miss Kyla,” said Steven. He said the statement with some conviction. As if he had seen it firsthand many times before.

Both he and Tillie were with me roaming along Cemetery Ridge. We had been watching the medics and Union infantry going through, picking up the dead bodies. We had been brimming with morbid curiosity to see the rancid corpses of these fallen heroes. I was not prepared for what I had seen. And smelled. Some of these bodies had been lying out in the hot sun for a few days now. Some were bloated with gas, their hands grasping out with rigor mortis, their mouths frozen open in silent cries of torment.

The battle had ended the day before with the Union armies pushing back the last of the Rebel charge and sending them packing back south. That was before I saw Steven kneeling over the form of a young boy that I thought looked familiar. My head spun with shock when I realized it was Zammie. He had a massive bullet wound in his chest where some monster had shot him. Blood had splattered and dried black all over his neck and mouth.      

“Why did your cousin support Secesh?” Tillie asked me.

I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I guessed that the Arjuna had placed him there for some reason. “I’m not sure,” I said. “I hadn’t seen him in a while. He must have had a good reason.”

“Maybe he did.” Tillie didn’t sound convinced. She took the fact that these Rebels had invaded her state very personally. “I’m sorry for your loss, Kyla.”

“Don’t judge him too harsh, Miss Tillie,” said Steven. “He was a good friend.”

The tears began to roll down my face again. I stared down at Zammie’s lifeless body. His glassy eyes were half open staring off into eternity. His purple-coated tongue rested on the edge of his bottom lip. His hands were bent inwards at the wrist. I was glad that his parents couldn’t see him like this. The same thing could be said for every other dead boy out on that field. Regardless of how valiant the cause, I’m sure all of their mothers would trade such a grisly and lonesome death of their sons to have them back safe and sound at home. I guess that’s the way war works. People go to fight with ideas and emotions but the finality of death isn’t quite fully taken into account. If it were I don’t see how war could be as common as it sometimes seems.            

I held out hope that he wasn’t really dead. That this was just an illusion played by the Arjuna. That’s when I noticed the doll being held in Tillie’s left hand.

“What is that, Tillie?”

“This thing?” She held the silver figure up for us to see. “I found it leaning up against the angle in the wall. One of the soldiers must have left it. Do you think we can keep it?”

“Can I see it?” I asked.

“Sure.” She handed me the doll and the archer’s almond-shaped eyes immediately began glowing red. I could have sworn it turned its head and grinned at me.

“It’s already working,” I said.

“What do you mean, already working?” asked Steven. “What’s that thing do?”

“Are you alright, Kyla?” Tillie was trying to talk to me when I fell to my knees and nearly passed out in the grass next to Zammie like I had been hit in the head with a hammer.

“Goodbye Steve . . .” I mumbled. “Bye Tills . . .”

The big orange and blue sky and the rolling green fields of Pennsylvania quickly blurred into a distant gray haze. The colors swirled around like a giant pinwheel until they began fading to black.

Please, Arjuna . . . send us back home . . . 

Excerpt from Killing For Country 

by Jason McKenney