Gabriel Francisco who was now of the rank of Private First Class, woke up in a military hospital bed to which he noticed a heart-rate monitor was hooked up to his chest that sat to the left side of the bed he was in. The white pillow beneath him was still soft as if not a single sweat from him was even shed onto it, to which he confirmed that the room he was in was very well air-conditioned in cool temperature.
How long was I out?
He asked himself that in his head as he looked around the room to which there was mostly just a grey painted wall along with a small television that was on telling the news about the current campaign against the Hamas Caliphate. However the volume was low enough in which it was able to basically be still heard and still easily able to block out if one wanted to go to sleep.
But Gabriel had just gotten a lot of rest as he could tell since he didn’t feel tired whatsoever, but he then noticed something right off the bat which was three bullet hole wounds on his lower chest that were stitched up. However he noticed a large cast on his left leg as he felt sharp pain coming from his lower left leg as if it was crushed by a heavy object.
Just then it all came back to him now as he remembered what exactly happened before he blacked out.
He was patrolling the streets of the local village they were stationed at along with the company of four other soldiers to which he ended up stumbling upon a dirty local child who was a little boy who had nothing but worn-out and teared up clothes that his chest was easily visible. By the looks of it Francisco remembered he could guess this poor unlucky child was homeless for a long time. Suddenly he remembered the echoes of gunshots coming from nearby towards him to which he remembers the adrenaline rushing through his body from his adrenal glands, thus getting himself into automatic combat mode.
Next he remembered grabbing the homeless boy in his left arm while he held his rifle in his right arm as it was a struggle he remembered worrying his gun would slip off due to fright, along with the fact the fear of him being unable to safe this child from harm’s way.
He then recalled he ran with the boy in his left arm until suddenly he saw a large 1974 Dodge D200 pickup truck that was white in color coming straight at him. After that everything went black.
Okay that makes sense to why my left leg is fucked.
He thought as he realized that his left leg was ran over by the pickup.
After remembering what happened to him he noticed on the small rollable table next to his bed on the right side of where he was had a soda can of Guaraná, a soda he fondly remembers enjoying since childhood as it was one of the very few things that he enjoyed that didn’t made it seem like his childhood was absolute shit.
“Ah. Guaraná a bebida dos deuses.”
Ah. Guaraná the drink of the gods.
He said with a smile feeling happy to finally have a drink of his favorite soda for the first time in months.
He grabbed it and opened the can to which it made the cracking sound to which was music to Gabriel’s ears. After that seconds later he drank from it in delight and almost felt like crying over the fact he has finally been reunited with his favorite soda.
Suddenly a female soldier comes in to which he recognizes it instantly being Laura Femsworth, his friend from the nation of Australia.
“Good to finally see your awake.” She said in her native accent. At the same time she had a special cast around her waist from the stab injury she received from a couple months back.
“How long was I out?” He asked her being curious as he couldn’t tell how much time has passed since he was injured in battle, not to mention the fact the room he was in oddly enough didn’t have a single clock in it.
“You were out cold for two days from what I heard from the other soldiers who rescued you in battle.” She replied to which Gabriel nodded in response.
“What about the boy?” He then asked as he needed to know if that homeless boy he came across was alright or not.
Laura sat there for a couple of seconds in silence as if she felt sorry for having to inform Gabriel of news that isn’t great to hear but must be told anyway.
“Ele não conseguiu…”
He did not make it…
She said to him in Portuguese, to which she had come to learn some basic Portuguese to use in everyday conversation from Gabriel and other Brazilian soldiers who were stationed here.
Suddenly after being told what happened to the boy he moved his left arm across the small rollable table that had his can of Guaraná (which was half empty) sitting on to which it was then knocked over spilling the pink liquid of soda out onto the table and floor, to which seconds later the can rolled off onto the floor making a scrapping sound to which it proceeded to spill more soda onto the floor.
Gabriel was angry and upset. He felt like he wanted to get up and grab a loaded rifle and find the fucker whoever murdered that boy, and at the same time he just wanted to cry either from frustration or cry because he felt it was his fault that the boy was killed.
“My father was fucking right…” He said trying to not choke up.
“I am a pathetic faggot.” He said as he couldn’t help but shed a few tears down his cheeks.
“Gabby don’t say that…” Laura replied trying to comfort him while also trying not to get herself accidentally hurt from Gabriel’s unpredictable rage.
“It’s true!” He shouted to her in anger.
“No matter what I fucking do! I always will fuck up and have to live with the burden of the fact I am useless!” He then said.
“You aren’t useless Gabriel, if you were you would have avoided being drafted into the Brazilian Army.” She then told him.
“Even soldiers like me can be useless. How can we win this fucking war if we keep fucking up and allow more and more innocent people to get killed!?”
“Gabriel…” Laura said to him softly trying to calm herself.
“All my life I have been treated like shit for the fact I am a homosexual! All my life I had to endure being called a “faggot” or “demon” or “sinner”. Nobody gave a shit about me!” He screamed.
“Nobody!” He then said raising his voice further.
“I should fucking just kill myself which will do the world a fav-” Gabriel said until he was interrupted by Laura who then shouted.
“Shut the fuck up!!!!” She shouted.
“Your not useless we all have made mistakes. And what you’ve went through is horrible, but you don’t know what mistake I made.” She told him.
“Yeah right… I doubt you made a bigger mistake than me Laura!” Gabriel rudely snapped back at her disbelieving that his friend had done something more horrible than he did.
“Well then your wrong!”
“I did something even more unforgivable to a former friend of mine!” She said.
“Okay what did you do?” He then asked.
“I had a close friend who I felt was like a brother to me growing up…” She began.
“His name was Nate…” She told him.
“We always hanged out and were there for one another the way siblings would and should love one another. He cared about me and I cared about him like a sibling would.”
“We grew up together and went to the same secondary school together, to which at the time I began to grow distant from him as I got myself addicted to smoking cigarettes. Throughout secondary school I would walk past him in the hallway or at lunch either saying a simple “hi” or just making silent eye contact.”
“I know that Nate knew about me and my addiction to smoking cigarettes as he was informed by a couple of other classmates that I was selling packs of cigarettes in my neighborhood.”
“But he never let that make him not like me as he still was being friendly to me at school…”
“But of course I became a total fucking bitch and was being a bitch toward him. But he just ignored it as if all those insults or negative emotions I made deflected off of him.”
“So what happened? Did he eventually started to think negatively of you…?” Gabriel then asked her as he laid on his bed looking at her.
“Well…” She said trying her best not to choke up into tears.
“I found out he got accepted at a art university in Brisbane and it was the kind of schools that were well famous for having plenty of famous artists, painters, and animators from.” She then said to Gabriel.
“I was so angry and jealous when I found out about that through the morning announcements. I felt like my life was made to be so unfair and shit while Nate’s life was made to be great and fair. But then again I did nothing throughout high school except of course study for tests and do my shit homework.”
“However I didn’t do anything in regards to what I would do after high school. So I pretty much was being a dumbass by making stupid life decisions and fucking up my future…”
“So I went to talk to Nate after school one day and I told him how much I hated him and how I wished that I never had met him.”
She then couldn’t hold back her tears and thus a stream of tears rained down her cheeks as she felt so guilty of what she did in the past.
“He then told me “Fine Laura, if you feel that way I guess this friendship is over!” and it was the first time I saw him so heartbroken and sad. Yet he w-wasn’t mad…”
“He felt heartbroken that he saw you become a wreck.” Gabriel replied guessing to which Laura nodded in agreement.
“So I vividly remember turning around in the opposite direction and I shouted to him “I hope you fucking die!” to which he didn’t reply and I just walked home.”
“Two days later I was in homeroom sitting at my desk bored out of my mind since I hated school and I just wanted to graduate and do whatever I want with my life. But everyone else was acting weird as if something horrible happened.”
“I remember that this one classmate named Max looked at me with a mad look and told me “I hope your fucking happy bitch” to which I was confused since I had no idea what exactly was going on.”
“Then the morning announcements through the speaker in our ceiling came on and our school’s principal announced something that changed my life forever…” She said and then paused for a moment.
“Students and staff I have sad news that many of you do not want to hear…”
“Nate MacFonnell has died last night… He was killed during a drive-by shooting by four men who were members of the Australian Brotherhood…”
“May he be remembered for his kindness and talent in drawing and painting. He will be deeply missed.”
“My god….” Gabriel said in shock and felt sorry for Laura.
“I was entirely shocked and heartbroken… I felt like it was my fault.”
“I then ran out of my homeroom crying and I ran home and I locked myself in my room and I stayed their for three days until my dad busted down my door worried for me.”
“He knew the news of Nate’s unfair death was hitting me like a brick wall. But he never knew what I said to him that made it so unforgivable and wrong.”
“The rest of the year I was depressed to the point I refused to attend graduation and after high school I became a alcoholic until eventually my dad had to intervene and take me to Alcoholic Anonymous of Australia gathering to which it felt like hell but it cleaned me up.”
“But it didn’t clean my depression up entirely…”
“I still feel guilty over Nate’s death, I k-know it isn’t my fault and t-that I wasn’t there…”
“But the fact the last thing I said to him “I hope you die” while he was still alive… It s-still haunts me and I still feel guilty about it…” She said as her eyes were now dried up redden with tears.
“I have to live with the fact that the last thing I said to him was nothing but evil and fuck….” She said choking up.
“That he went to the grave with what I said to him and having to know that I his former best friend had took the wrong path in life….”
She then paused for a moment in pure silence until she continued.
“And for as long as I live… I have to live my life secretly hating myself…”
“Laura…” Gabriel said softly.
“I may have never experienced anything like you felt… But I feel you…” He said.
“Sometimes you never know when it will be the last time you see someone while they are alive. You never know if whatever you said could be the very last thing you said to them. Life is fucking cruel for that reason…” He told her from his heart.
“I always wondered why someone by the name of “God” would bring us into this world only to show us that it unpredictable and depressing. Like why would he do that to us honestly…?”
“Then again I never believed in God for the fact I have been always told that a person like him hates homosexuals like me. But then again I think he doesn’t hate me or others, simply because I feel he just is not there anymore…”
“What do you mean?” Laura asked him curious what exactly he meant by “not there anymore”.
“What I mean is that if there was a God, then he surely left us a long time ago when we went violent and hateful towards each other… He felt so guilty of creating us humans and yet at the same time he felt that he couldn’t get rid of us either because he had probably an emotional attachment to us.” He explained to her.
“So you think God abandoned us because he felt it was the right thing to do…?” She asked him.
“Yes… I would too if I was in a situation like that where there is nothing you can do except walk away.”
“That must of been what your friend Nate felt the last time he saw you while he was alive. Only thing he could have done was walk away as much as he didn’t want to…” He said to her.
“But I know for fact even though I never met him or knew him, I know his last thought while he was dying was of you. That said he still loved you Laura even after what you did to him.”
“Laura I’m glad that I met you honestly otherwise I would have killed myself by now, and probably you would have done the same if you hadn’t met me.” He then said.
“Your right and I am grateful that I met a wonderful person like you Gabriel.”
-Somewhere in Saudi Arabia, July 15th, 2021
How long was I out?
He asked himself that in his head as he looked around the room to which there was mostly just a grey painted wall along with a small television that was on telling the news about the current campaign against the Hamas Caliphate. However the volume was low enough in which it was able to basically be still heard and still easily able to block out if one wanted to go to sleep.
But Gabriel had just gotten a lot of rest as he could tell since he didn’t feel tired whatsoever, but he then noticed something right off the bat which was three bullet hole wounds on his lower chest that were stitched up. However he noticed a large cast on his left leg as he felt sharp pain coming from his lower left leg as if it was crushed by a heavy object.
Just then it all came back to him now as he remembered what exactly happened before he blacked out.
He was patrolling the streets of the local village they were stationed at along with the company of four other soldiers to which he ended up stumbling upon a dirty local child who was a little boy who had nothing but worn-out and teared up clothes that his chest was easily visible. By the looks of it Francisco remembered he could guess this poor unlucky child was homeless for a long time. Suddenly he remembered the echoes of gunshots coming from nearby towards him to which he remembers the adrenaline rushing through his body from his adrenal glands, thus getting himself into automatic combat mode.
Next he remembered grabbing the homeless boy in his left arm while he held his rifle in his right arm as it was a struggle he remembered worrying his gun would slip off due to fright, along with the fact the fear of him being unable to safe this child from harm’s way.
He then recalled he ran with the boy in his left arm until suddenly he saw a large 1974 Dodge D200 pickup truck that was white in color coming straight at him. After that everything went black.
Okay that makes sense to why my left leg is fucked.
He thought as he realized that his left leg was ran over by the pickup.
After remembering what happened to him he noticed on the small rollable table next to his bed on the right side of where he was had a soda can of Guaraná, a soda he fondly remembers enjoying since childhood as it was one of the very few things that he enjoyed that didn’t made it seem like his childhood was absolute shit.
“Ah. Guaraná a bebida dos deuses.”
Ah. Guaraná the drink of the gods.
He said with a smile feeling happy to finally have a drink of his favorite soda for the first time in months.
He grabbed it and opened the can to which it made the cracking sound to which was music to Gabriel’s ears. After that seconds later he drank from it in delight and almost felt like crying over the fact he has finally been reunited with his favorite soda.
Suddenly a female soldier comes in to which he recognizes it instantly being Laura Femsworth, his friend from the nation of Australia.
“Good to finally see your awake.” She said in her native accent. At the same time she had a special cast around her waist from the stab injury she received from a couple months back.
“How long was I out?” He asked her being curious as he couldn’t tell how much time has passed since he was injured in battle, not to mention the fact the room he was in oddly enough didn’t have a single clock in it.
“You were out cold for two days from what I heard from the other soldiers who rescued you in battle.” She replied to which Gabriel nodded in response.
“What about the boy?” He then asked as he needed to know if that homeless boy he came across was alright or not.
Laura sat there for a couple of seconds in silence as if she felt sorry for having to inform Gabriel of news that isn’t great to hear but must be told anyway.
“Ele não conseguiu…”
He did not make it…
She said to him in Portuguese, to which she had come to learn some basic Portuguese to use in everyday conversation from Gabriel and other Brazilian soldiers who were stationed here.
Suddenly after being told what happened to the boy he moved his left arm across the small rollable table that had his can of Guaraná (which was half empty) sitting on to which it was then knocked over spilling the pink liquid of soda out onto the table and floor, to which seconds later the can rolled off onto the floor making a scrapping sound to which it proceeded to spill more soda onto the floor.
Gabriel was angry and upset. He felt like he wanted to get up and grab a loaded rifle and find the fucker whoever murdered that boy, and at the same time he just wanted to cry either from frustration or cry because he felt it was his fault that the boy was killed.
“My father was fucking right…” He said trying to not choke up.
“I am a pathetic faggot.” He said as he couldn’t help but shed a few tears down his cheeks.
“Gabby don’t say that…” Laura replied trying to comfort him while also trying not to get herself accidentally hurt from Gabriel’s unpredictable rage.
“It’s true!” He shouted to her in anger.
“No matter what I fucking do! I always will fuck up and have to live with the burden of the fact I am useless!” He then said.
“You aren’t useless Gabriel, if you were you would have avoided being drafted into the Brazilian Army.” She then told him.
“Even soldiers like me can be useless. How can we win this fucking war if we keep fucking up and allow more and more innocent people to get killed!?”
“Gabriel…” Laura said to him softly trying to calm herself.
“All my life I have been treated like shit for the fact I am a homosexual! All my life I had to endure being called a “faggot” or “demon” or “sinner”. Nobody gave a shit about me!” He screamed.
“Nobody!” He then said raising his voice further.
“I should fucking just kill myself which will do the world a fav-” Gabriel said until he was interrupted by Laura who then shouted.
“Shut the fuck up!!!!” She shouted.
“Your not useless we all have made mistakes. And what you’ve went through is horrible, but you don’t know what mistake I made.” She told him.
“Yeah right… I doubt you made a bigger mistake than me Laura!” Gabriel rudely snapped back at her disbelieving that his friend had done something more horrible than he did.
“Well then your wrong!”
“I did something even more unforgivable to a former friend of mine!” She said.
“Okay what did you do?” He then asked.
“I had a close friend who I felt was like a brother to me growing up…” She began.
“His name was Nate…” She told him.
“We always hanged out and were there for one another the way siblings would and should love one another. He cared about me and I cared about him like a sibling would.”
“We grew up together and went to the same secondary school together, to which at the time I began to grow distant from him as I got myself addicted to smoking cigarettes. Throughout secondary school I would walk past him in the hallway or at lunch either saying a simple “hi” or just making silent eye contact.”
“I know that Nate knew about me and my addiction to smoking cigarettes as he was informed by a couple of other classmates that I was selling packs of cigarettes in my neighborhood.”
“But he never let that make him not like me as he still was being friendly to me at school…”
“But of course I became a total fucking bitch and was being a bitch toward him. But he just ignored it as if all those insults or negative emotions I made deflected off of him.”
“So what happened? Did he eventually started to think negatively of you…?” Gabriel then asked her as he laid on his bed looking at her.
“Well…” She said trying her best not to choke up into tears.
“I found out he got accepted at a art university in Brisbane and it was the kind of schools that were well famous for having plenty of famous artists, painters, and animators from.” She then said to Gabriel.
“I was so angry and jealous when I found out about that through the morning announcements. I felt like my life was made to be so unfair and shit while Nate’s life was made to be great and fair. But then again I did nothing throughout high school except of course study for tests and do my shit homework.”
“However I didn’t do anything in regards to what I would do after high school. So I pretty much was being a dumbass by making stupid life decisions and fucking up my future…”
“So I went to talk to Nate after school one day and I told him how much I hated him and how I wished that I never had met him.”
She then couldn’t hold back her tears and thus a stream of tears rained down her cheeks as she felt so guilty of what she did in the past.
“He then told me “Fine Laura, if you feel that way I guess this friendship is over!” and it was the first time I saw him so heartbroken and sad. Yet he w-wasn’t mad…”
“He felt heartbroken that he saw you become a wreck.” Gabriel replied guessing to which Laura nodded in agreement.
“So I vividly remember turning around in the opposite direction and I shouted to him “I hope you fucking die!” to which he didn’t reply and I just walked home.”
“Two days later I was in homeroom sitting at my desk bored out of my mind since I hated school and I just wanted to graduate and do whatever I want with my life. But everyone else was acting weird as if something horrible happened.”
“I remember that this one classmate named Max looked at me with a mad look and told me “I hope your fucking happy bitch” to which I was confused since I had no idea what exactly was going on.”
“Then the morning announcements through the speaker in our ceiling came on and our school’s principal announced something that changed my life forever…” She said and then paused for a moment.
“Students and staff I have sad news that many of you do not want to hear…”
“Nate MacFonnell has died last night… He was killed during a drive-by shooting by four men who were members of the Australian Brotherhood…”
“May he be remembered for his kindness and talent in drawing and painting. He will be deeply missed.”
“My god….” Gabriel said in shock and felt sorry for Laura.
“I was entirely shocked and heartbroken… I felt like it was my fault.”
“I then ran out of my homeroom crying and I ran home and I locked myself in my room and I stayed their for three days until my dad busted down my door worried for me.”
“He knew the news of Nate’s unfair death was hitting me like a brick wall. But he never knew what I said to him that made it so unforgivable and wrong.”
“The rest of the year I was depressed to the point I refused to attend graduation and after high school I became a alcoholic until eventually my dad had to intervene and take me to Alcoholic Anonymous of Australia gathering to which it felt like hell but it cleaned me up.”
“But it didn’t clean my depression up entirely…”
“I still feel guilty over Nate’s death, I k-know it isn’t my fault and t-that I wasn’t there…”
“But the fact the last thing I said to him “I hope you die” while he was still alive… It s-still haunts me and I still feel guilty about it…” She said as her eyes were now dried up redden with tears.
“I have to live with the fact that the last thing I said to him was nothing but evil and fuck….” She said choking up.
“That he went to the grave with what I said to him and having to know that I his former best friend had took the wrong path in life….”
She then paused for a moment in pure silence until she continued.
“And for as long as I live… I have to live my life secretly hating myself…”
“Laura…” Gabriel said softly.
“I may have never experienced anything like you felt… But I feel you…” He said.
“Sometimes you never know when it will be the last time you see someone while they are alive. You never know if whatever you said could be the very last thing you said to them. Life is fucking cruel for that reason…” He told her from his heart.
“I always wondered why someone by the name of “God” would bring us into this world only to show us that it unpredictable and depressing. Like why would he do that to us honestly…?”
“Then again I never believed in God for the fact I have been always told that a person like him hates homosexuals like me. But then again I think he doesn’t hate me or others, simply because I feel he just is not there anymore…”
“What do you mean?” Laura asked him curious what exactly he meant by “not there anymore”.
“What I mean is that if there was a God, then he surely left us a long time ago when we went violent and hateful towards each other… He felt so guilty of creating us humans and yet at the same time he felt that he couldn’t get rid of us either because he had probably an emotional attachment to us.” He explained to her.
“So you think God abandoned us because he felt it was the right thing to do…?” She asked him.
“Yes… I would too if I was in a situation like that where there is nothing you can do except walk away.”
“That must of been what your friend Nate felt the last time he saw you while he was alive. Only thing he could have done was walk away as much as he didn’t want to…” He said to her.
“But I know for fact even though I never met him or knew him, I know his last thought while he was dying was of you. That said he still loved you Laura even after what you did to him.”
“Laura I’m glad that I met you honestly otherwise I would have killed myself by now, and probably you would have done the same if you hadn’t met me.” He then said.
“Your right and I am grateful that I met a wonderful person like you Gabriel.”
-Somewhere in Saudi Arabia, July 15th, 2021
