Bang. I hear it as it hits me. The bitter soil is black and cold, soulless and desolate as the black dirt lands in my mouth. The hard salty taste causes me to gag and vomit. The sun has left us. We have been here for a while and have not seen the sun for a few days. The dark grey sky overhead is plagued with clouds and despair. The clouds do not even make shapes anymore. They just look like and mess of thick smoke or fog. No creativity or imagination in the clouds. It has been so long that I’m not sure if it’s the clouds or me. The dirt used to have bright green, welcoming grass on top. A great big field built for happiness and playing. Carefree as childhood, ruined by the exploits of man. Now nothing grows here. The soil used to have color and life, but now it is just jet black. The dirt finds it way into anything. The black, bitter dirt is just a part of life now. It attaches itself to your clothes, climbs in in your boots, your pack and just about anything you can think of; the dirt is there. It trying to escape this God awful place. Little does it know that we are stuck here too. As much as we want to leave, we can’t.

My hands grab some of that black dirt and squeeze it as if I am trying to create diamonds. But the pressure is not enough to make this soil into diamonds, because nothing can come from this blackened earth into greatness. Holding the dirt I prop myself up with straightened arms to cough up my lung. The force of the cough causes me to fall to my side. My lungs are trying to escape from my body. My throat ignites with the fires from hell, violent and explosive as Krakatoa. Shifting from my side to my back, the pain subsides. With the very last ounce of my strength I force myself to sit up in the crowded quarters of this grave. Resting my back on the dirt wall, the cold mud wall feels like a prison in this hole. A wave of freezing spurts causes me to cringe and shiver with one last cough into my hand. The dry coughing is over as I open my hand to reveal the red. Great. I honestly do not know how to feel. Sure, the blood red liquid in my hand does not bode well for me, but it is the first sign of color I have had in a while.

Errrring… My ears are ringing with the last blast of fire. This is not uncommon. The world starts to slow down. I sit against the wall made of hellish earth, unable to move. But the people around me start to move so slowly. They are stuck in molasses, attempting to escape the stick sugary substance. My thoughts go to the sun-bathed days back home with the bright star of light in the sky and green grass fields that would be the finest feed for any farm animal. A small table off the finest Georgia sweet tea the world has ever seen. The glass filled to the brim and crying tears of joy as the ice melts over the side, the lemon dancing in the heavenly nectar. Resting in the chair built for relaxing. My blood stains my shaking hand as I reach for the glass. The heaven of earth is replaced with hell as the black dirt walls come back to me and my days in Georgia vanish. Reaching out for nothing in this grave.

Red. Other than this black and grey world, red is a popular color. As least today it is. My clothes are slowly gaining the color red, spreading as a leaky faucet distributes water. Looking to the other side of this dirt hole I see barbed wire. All I want is to see something other than grey. Finding strength from nowhere, I move into a kneeling position, throwing my blood stained hand on top of the soil wall. All the might in the world goes to my legs and my arm. The faucet’s leak turns to a steady flow. This causes me to fall back to my knees. Using my other hand to cover up flow, my left hand goes on my chest. I feel like the kid who saved Holland. Time to try again. Rising only a bit to see over the black soil, I see hell. The fires spread and burn with a great heat. Barbed wire is common, either built up into a wall or fractured and mangled. Dog fights put all on edge as they swoop overhead. We shake and shiver at the sight. Explosions of fire provide the much needed sunlight. Dink. My body is thrown from one side to the other. Landing on my back, I feel the black dirt soak into blood, my blood. My helmet had been hit, and I had not heard anything. Sometimes you just do not hear the bullet.