You swallow the bile and stand at attention, forcing your eyes to remain glued on the five-pointed shape that was being chiseled into the wall. You are the reason this is happened, and you’ll be damned if you look away. Look away from a man’s life being reduced to just another star on the wall, the black mark just one in the sky of the others on the cream wall.
You stand rigid as your insides scream, about how they got it wrong, about how he should be the one standing here, looking at your. After all, it was sheer dumb luck that let you escape Istanbul with a scratch, and him not at all. Sheer dumb luck, and a stupid choice to let you go up the ladder first. That choice was the last one he ever made, and the fact that he will no longer be at his desk, just two away from yours, when you get in to work every day makes your throat dry up and shrivel, that stifled scream now pushing its way out through your nerves.
You know they’ll decide to send you home for the week. Things like this can be hard, they’ll say, go home, get some rest. Like there can be any rest. There’s no such thing as recuperation when the only thing you see when you close your eyes is the body of a limp friend in your arms. No, you’ll want to tell them, time off is the last thing I need. Send me somewhere, anywhere. Please, just let me work. But you know there’s no point. Rules are rules, and you’re a part of one of the largest bureaucracies in the world.
You continue to stand still, listening to your boss give some speech about bravery and loss, but the words are lost on you. Your thoughts have turned back to how you got here, why you chose to come to a place where any moment could be your last. You could have been a lawyer, a doctor, or any number of things that your family could understood. It was because you had been young and naïve, you know. You had grown tired of having your heart broken by the travesties in the world, and had decided to do something about it. The death they had warned you about had never felt real, not like this. Even when you had had to take your first fatal shot in the field, the face that would no longer smile had not been that of a friend’s, of someone you truly care for.
The ceremony comes to an end and the crowd scatters, and you follow along mindlessly until you’re dismissed. You manage to drive yourself home without being present, and later you will feel guilty about putting people in danger like that. Right now, your only concern is the building pressure that has your hands shaking, the tremors so strong that it takes you four tries just to unlock your door. You run when you get inside, worried you won’t make it, ignoring the side table you ram into as you make a beeline for the bedroom.
But you’re lucky, just this once. You grab the pillow, smother your face, and scream. You will keep going until you’ve lost your voice and your tear ducts run dry. And then you will put yourself back together.