Reply #40: The elbows made me do it [View All]

[dropkickpa]

It was back in eighteen-dickity-three and the kaiser was making a push to overtake our position. Me and my platoon were pinned down in the middle of a pineapple orchard along with the remnants of a button-making factory crew and all we had to eat were muffins. For five hard nights we scrambled from rooftop to rooftop looking for safety, me and Louie, with shells bursting all around us. On the sixth night, during a lull in the action, and we hid behind a barrel of lard, Louie's head in my lap, my fingers in his lank hair, his warm eyes gazing into mine, I told him the truth. That it was all for naught. It was pointless. We were going to die in this burning inferno, this hell we called Lisbon. And for what? For glory? For god and country? For want of another match? No. Not anymore. And I jumped up, guns blazing, cigar clamped between my teeth, and tripped over the chicken pecking in the gravel. Fucking chickens, always underfoot.