A piercing gaze confronted my eyes… heavily, dim, and lifeless. The sight of the body, painted in blood, made me wither. Beneath me, my leg too was covered in blood and I could barely walk. 

Where was I? What happened? I could remember my unit on our way to our pick up in Afghanistan. I could remember talking to Max about the names he might call his baby girl. I suggested: Mary, but I don't know if he liked it or not because as we were climbing down the mountain, gun fire echoed in the cavern and my buddy fell down. This was an ambush. We broke up and hid behind trees returning fire. I had shouted at him to stay down and crawl to me; I reached out to pull him and…

                                                                                                                                            ---

I woke up with pain in my legs, in my side, and my vision blurred. From beyond me, somewhere on the other side of the wall, I could hear goats and chickens and the chatter of people. They did not speak English but Arabic. When my vision came back to me, I could see what looked like bullet holes all along the wall. 

My bed is hard as a rock and feels like wood. A table with a book is to the left of me, along with a pistol and a knife. To my right sits a bucket of water, needles, salt and blood. I can now feel that my head is soaked with water. Upon this realization comes another, this time one of immediate threat: A young Afghanistan boy is watching me. I play like I am sleeping until the boy comes closer, when I grab the gun and point it at him. 

“Papa!”

My hands shake, indicating that I am a loose canon. With his hands up in the air, a man enters the room to show me that he is of no threat, nor is his child. Though I cannot understand his language, he seems to be telling me that I am not in danger. 

My head hurts; I feel dizzy, and again I see this man but this time we are outside in the desert. I point my gun at him and command him, “to back the fuck up!” but I can barely stand. When I fall to the ground, too heavy to hold myself up, I can vaguely feel the old man pick me up. I couldn’t see Johnson anywhere. 

Now, upon waking, I see that somehow I am in his home. I try to step towards the man, slowly positioning the gun back on the table. My breathing is evening out again, until an eruption of gun fire and yelling outside suddenly launches around us. It is pandemonium again. As the old man and his son open a floor door under my bed, they look at me as if to speak through their eyes.

“Al Qaeda?” 

They shake their heads yes and urgently help me to lower my battered body beneath the floor boards.

Are they positioning me to be captured or are they helping keep me safe? It’s hard to say. 

So I wait, and I wait, and I hope… wondering if Johnson is hidden away somewhere too…