Page 25 - Contrast1971Spring

I groped about on hands and knees only too aware of the pain in my head. Feeling no blood,
I considered myself lucky. I found the light switch and turned it. It clicked but the room reo
mained dark. Was I to be spared nothing?

I felt 'behind me for the wall and locating it leaned till my back rested upon it. Sliding
down it I came to a sitting position and drew my legs up to my chest, encircling them with my
arms. I rested there, forehead on knees, eyes closed, for an indeterminate length of time. Terri-
fled, I spoke quietly, inarticulately to myself. I'm not sure but I seem to think I sobbed be-
tween expletives and questions voiced solely to express the fear and disorientation. I did not

seek answers to the questions. Neither did rI redress myself for my show of weakness. If there

was a fight going on there I was losing it quickly, dreadfully.
After some minutes of this, I do not know, as I have said, how many, I began to think of

other things than my predicament. I searched carefully through my past for a reference point,
a beginning from which to attack this problem. It was useless, though, and I soon realized it.
What was happening to me was illogical, indeed it smacked of the supernatural, or of madness.
Perhaps they died from fright and walls disappeared afterwards. This thought didn't set my
mind at ease but it did give me a focal point for my effort. If I could refuse to scare, to hold
desperately onto, my reason, I could perhaps defeat this paradox.

I began to think, furiously at first, then slower as I realized the very speed and incoherence
of my mental ramblings were evidence that I was slipping, losing. Delibera:tely, then, I began to
relive the past. As was often the case in moments of reflection, my concentration drifted to the
war. It seemed as though the preponderance of all things memorable in my past happened
during the war. In the service I'd been part of a great scheme, a cog in a great machine and I
liked the lack of individuality compared to civilian life.

There I sat, hunched against the wall as though to protect me against the cold, recallmg
the countless mornings I sat on guard, protecting myself in the same manner from snow and
sleet and wind. Sitting against a wall (I must admit even thinking the word "wall" bothered me
no.Iittle) in the same position save that my 'head was erect and a rifle was cradled-in my arms.
Many was the morning that I sat so, cold and miserable.T chuckled thinking of that. Such things

are taken easily in retrospect.