Pages Of A Mans Fear

19th June 1963,
I am at the tip of gunfire and hiding. There’s cracking rifles in the distance, and I’m creeping towards a bunker. The dripping of sweat down my face,is sliding down my nose, and falling to its depth. There’s anger thrashing through my body and nearly about to crack. I’m watching my mate fall to the bottomless pit and leaving his life behind. I’m hearing the yells of the men who are dropping to the ground, over, and over, again and feeling the life being sucked from their torso, with gushing tears falling from their eyes.
All around me is a dense, green bushland with puddles of dark, endless mud along my path. There are gunshots surrounding me and I feel as if I need to wake up from a dream, full of a man’s worst fears. As I squeeze my rifle, I wait for a break in time to pass on through the gunshots. I waited, and waited until I had a chance to advance to the next bunker to take cover. All of a sudden the shots stopped and I jumped up sliding on the slippery mud, and started yelling and firing my rifle aimlessly. The world stopped and seemed to slow down and I paused, I looked forward and watched as my team ran ahead.
At that moment I saw that one of my enemies spotted me and so he took his aim. But I felt as if I didn’t care, I had nothing left, no wife or kids, just me. So I stopped and closed my eyes and heard a huge bang up at my ear, then I opened them and saw the enemy fall to the ground. So I turned to my side and there was a man staring at me saying in a deep, croaky voice, “Open your eyes next time”. He was old, cut, dirty, wrinkled and muscley and i think he was injured but he kept going on till death and ran and disapeared into the distance.
I stopped and looked around and saw the bodies of many men, mine, and theirs on the mud. The sight was making me feel sick inside, so I stopped and fell to the ground up against a rock. There is water rushing down my face, and into the mud, i felt the image was portrayed as me, as i was falling with the others, with no-one to remember my story.
I opened my ears and heard the screams of all the men crying for their life, just making me feel lifeless and empty. I suddenly felt a rush of shock through my body and I crouched down, and fell and landed in a puddle. I am camouflaged in the mud, and I am slowly crawling to hide behind a large willow tree.
Many men ran out to fight, but their life was treated as dust, just like something no-one thought highly of, just swept away and hidden out of sight, out of mind, out of thought. I can’t bear to stand another second, I feel that i can do more but yet the enemy are backing slowly and dawn is near.
I jump up and feel dizzy and blurred and I can hear the splashing of the wet ground beneath my feet. Water is flowing down my face and dripping to my shoes. All I can see is forest, shrub and mud. Soon I notice the enemies had retreated and so I fell to the ground in relief but knew it was not over.
As the sun fell, we all made camp in areas unseen, all we had was just a wet bag to lay on, but it was enough, more than I expected to have in this wilderness. I am lying under a small gum tree, shade from the enemies eyes, and cover from the morning sun. There are crickets in the grass, singing and comforting me, while I am drifting off into silence, without noise and falling to a deep, silent sleep.
Soon from what felt like 7 seconds of sleep, I was woken by the only tune I knew, knowing that all it meant was that today was another day, but not just any day, it was going to be a day of pain, and a day I might not survive.

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