Short+Story+-+Rough+Copy

Short story – rough copy Bullets whizzed over head while shells exploded in every direction. Some of the rounds came so close to me that I could even feel them as they passed no more than two inches from my body. I continued to make my way up the hill even with the mud making every little movement a thousand times harder. I pushed on towards the top of the hill it was impossible to tell where we were being shot from, with the rain and mist one couldn’t see more than seven maybe eight yards ahead. As I ran towards the top of the hill where the German’s turrets lay I heard the cries of help from men who had been hit I turned to help them but my captain barked “Robert are you crazy? Get your head out of your ass and keep charging the hill. It’s a funny thing war. No more than three years ago I didn’t even know these men excised and know was willing to risk my life for them. We’d become brothers sons of war. I was just glad that John my childhood friend wasn’t wounded. Last time he was hit and almost run over by a tank his pregnant wife Mary wrote me a letter in which she begged for my word that I wouldn’t let anything happen to him again. John and I were among the first to make it to the turrets and once there we started to do what they’d been trained to do kill Germans. The night before when we were briefed of our objective we’d thought up were extremely efficient to kill the four or five Germans in each bunker John would throw a grenade in down in to the bunker and they we’d blitz the wounded Germans with our rifles. Our captain just declared that we had successfully claimed the bunker and that now we were to help the medics tend to the wounded. As we were walking away I heard two consecutive shots one from behind me and another from the left followed by John collapsing. He’d been shot in the back and as he collapsed without thinking I went to help him. The bullet had gone clean through his back and out the other side. I immediately began to immediately began to apply pressure to the wound trying to remember anything that I had learned in medical school before being drafted. But it was too late he looked at me for a last followed by the release of life from his body. I awoke with a start; I could feel the cold sweat dripping from his forehead and the ice cold blood in his veins. He felt like a failure Mary had become a widow at twenty four and John’s son had never known his father. He went outside and lit up a cigar. If you were to pass Robert on the street, with his drinking buddies or his house you’d imagine that he led a great life; a war hero who’d come back and become one of the best surgeons in U.S. history a loving wife, loving family. But you couldn’t be farther from the truth, after coming back from WWII he’d be diagnosed with shellshock or post traumatic stress disorder. He became obsessed with his work, obsessed with never feeling that release of energy that comes from a person when they die. Immediately after coming home he married his high school sweet heart and had three wonderful children. But as the years went on he became more and more obsessed with his work a started to push his family away eventually he and his wife had a divorce and she moved away with the children. As he smoked his cigar he thought about his dream and his dear friend John it was then that he realised that twenty five years ago today John had died, twenty five years ago Robert had felt John’s life leave his body, this dream had haunted him for twenty five years. He found it useless to go back to bed knowing he would just have the same dream so instead he poured himself a drink and decided to wait for the sun rise. During the hours before the sunrise Robert decided to contemplate life. He’d done everything to make it up to Mary and her son he always sent them presents for birthdays and Christmas, money when times were hard for them he even helped her son get into university. But the felling that he’d let down John and his family still remained. This feeling had slowly been consuming me for the past twenty years. If only I had another chance, if only I had taken the bullet. These thought took over my mind for the next few hours leading up to the sunrise. As soon as I saw the sun start to come over the horizon all thoughts left my mind and as the sun rose I was filled with a new emotion. I don’t know how to explain how I felt, but after the sun had fully risen I noticed how it was different as if it had been reborn or had grown young. Had the sun made a mistake? Was the sun being given a second chance? Oh how I envied the sun. If only I could grow young and be given a second chance to save John’s life. Of course being a man of medicine and science I knew that nothing could reverse the effects of time and that nothing could bring back the dead and that we don’t grow young we grow old. I didn’t know what to do it was impossible to get a second chance John had died and it was my fault. Some people say that we all get second chances. I was never really a big believer in that until later on that day. My drinking friends and I were at our favourite pub having a drinking contest that was one of the few things that my mind set was just perfect for and as we got into it all my thoughts just began to drift into the back of my mind. It was down to me and Derek we had each downed fifteen shoots already and with our little side bet I wasn’t about to lose. So there we were our sixteenth shot in hand when Derek said “this must have come from the fountain of youth cause I feel like I’m twenty four!” I was then when it hit here was my second chance I may not be able to save John’s life but his son is currently serving in Vietnam maybe just maybe if I were to save his life that nightmare and the consuming felling of failure would go away. I could finally rest in peace. I downed my sixteenth shot just as Derek passed out and fell on to the floor and ran out of the pub I didn’t even take my winnings as far as I was concerned I was in debt to Derek.