Rifle butt to shoulder,
muzzle towards the sky.
Fire!
Rifle at Rest
His coffin stretched before us; a flag draping it, protecting it from the harsh realities of this world. We fire shots into the air as a symbol, outwardly showing our respect for the dead and inwardly trying to find some solace in social mourning. Funerals are not for the dead.
Rifle butt to shoulder,
muzzle towards the sky.
Fire!
Rifle at Rest
In the strictest temporal sense I am attending the funeral of my fallen brother but in reality I am still back on that long, dark stretch of road. I am still taking cover. I am still watching a brother die. That night was the first time in my life that I truly knew fear. Now I fear that I’ll always be here.
Rifle butt to shoulder,
muzzle towards the sky.
Fire!
Rifle at Rest
How can I move on from this? How am I supposed to go back home and shop for groceries or watch football on lazy Sunday? How am I expected to go on living when I should be dead, when I should be the one in that coffin? Why am I here? Funerals, after all, are not for the dead.
Rifle butt to shoulder,
muzzle towards the sky.
Fire!
Rifle at Rest
The people, these mourners weep for him, his mother, his father, his cousins, his wife. How can they cry for him when they never knew him? When he never died for them!
Rifle butt to shoulder,
muzzle towards the sky.
Fire!
Rifle at Rest
Rain is falling on the funeral now. Big, soft drops that soak the flag and collect at its corners, momentarily hanging there, suspended by surface tension and a lack of weight, until gravity finally wins out and pulls the water earthbound. It’s good to know that even the gods cry at funerals.
Rifle butt to shoulder,
muzzle towards the sky.
Fire!
Rifle at Rest
It’s raining here too, on this dark stretch of road. We’re having a hard time seeing the tips of our noses but we’re on patrol. I don’t know how he sees the window cracking open but he does. He pushes me, hard, sending me skittering down into the mud and as I look up at him, a curse already on my lips I see it:
Rifle butt to shoulder,
muzzle towards the sky.
Fire!
Rifle at Rest 
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