To Whom It May Concern

• Stacey Nightingale, Grade 12, Xavier College
• Poetry
• 2010

Finalist in the 'Pieces of Paradise 2010/2011' competition

Sunlight seeps through the broken blinds, the eyes of a condemned man softly glimmering with the tears of the sunlight that passes. Once, he was known as Adrian. The bed he sits on reeks of failure. Sweat stained sheets filled with blood of nightmares and the pillow, deflated of its former glory bears the reflection of it’s owner. His hands stagger to his face as he throws the empty bottle to the ground, where it lays beside the others, sleeping in stillness for all eternity. Adrian sobs into his sweaty hands “tell me lies about Vietnam”.
Like the concrete between bricks, the tears sealed his eyes shut, but still the torments of his past cut into his conscience. Flashes of blood and affliction pass through his mind. Now, it is just him and his empty bottles that lay invisible and silent by his side. The emptiness he feels overwhelms him as isolation and insomnia impale themselves on him. The bark of machine guns rattle through his brain each night.
He closes his eyes and sees his sergeant yelling at him frantically, his ears still ringing from the bomb that exploded near his camp site. It takes a few moments of blank stares on his behalf to realize that the sergeant is yelling at him to move in and start firing. Adrian looks at the terrified faces of the Vietnamese children running past him, screaming in fear. He knows what he has to do, yet doesn't. “Is there a problem soldier?!” the sergeant yells, Adrian looks at him in distraught then passively turns away and reluctantly shoots. The sound of agonizing screams and barking gunshots fade into silence. Tears softly fall from his scarred eyes.
The continuous nudging on his shoulder wakes Adrian from his nightmares. He turns his head and in a haze he sees a woman half-naked with her hand out. “Well, where's my money?” the women sniggers as Adrian reaches for his wallet. He retrieves the money and carelessly throws it at the woman as he turns back over disappointed. He had hoped to simply lay with her and talk for a while. He remembers the days where he cared about life, about living and longs for his misery to end. More women come, yet no love, no feeling.
He despises himself for listening to his sergeants, for doing as he was ordered even though he knew it was wrong. Another flashback, they come more frequently these days. He looks down and there amongst the gore, amongst the stench of burning flesh, he sees Dan lying in his arms, a soldier, a friend, a boy. His tears scold the surface of the boy’s gouged body, the boy does not flinch nor howl, yet simply smiles as his eyes lay empty and dark. Adrian wishes for his pain to be put to rest as Dan’s was, he prays for his guilt to be taken, and so it is ended with a letter beginning ‘To Whom it may concern’.