3 Minute Fiction #4 - Give Me Three Minutes and I'll Give You a Story

A Steemit Original -

Cough

Ryan James Robinson

It was frigid. His best buddies were gone - cold and stiff, lying on the field somewhere. The battle had been a complete disaster. Butchery, what other word could better sum up what had happened to the Army of the Potomac on December 13th?

Now he was back at camp, and some would say camp was even more miserable than the battlefield itself. Camp is where he would spend Christmas, and this would be by far the worst holiday of his life.

He coughed. And coughed and coughed and coughed. A two minute fit before he could regain his breath. It was as if he had cued the cacophony, for all the sudden the camp was bathed in a deluge of whoops - tens of thousands of men trying in vain to relieve their congested lungs.

He knew he wasn't the only one questioning why he was there. In enemy country, on the wrong side of the Rappahannock, in winter - he could remember complaining how ungodly hot it had been in July, how badly he had wanted to jump in the river. Now he'd take that heat any day over the moldy dampness he couldn't seem to shake from his bones.

He was too uncomfortable to mourn the losses of his friends, his oldest mates whom he signed up with when their hearts swelled with pride and patriotism in 1861. A quick lick and they'd be home in six months reminiscing about the glory days. That was almost too long ago to remember. The rebs had been drastically underestimated, that was only too clear. He tried to voice the name of one of his friends, a friend he had seen blown apart right in front of him, but all that came out was a merciless hack.

He tried to envision his home, his job, his daily responsibilities. His duties to his wife and four children. The farm. His sons taking on the added pressure. The Tunneys down the street, how were they getting on? How would all the people in his town take the news of the fallen? What a morbid feeling would pervade town over the holiday. If the news came that soon. Either way, there wouldn't be much to be merry about around poor Concord.

The rest of the north couldn't be feeling any better. Entire regiments. The whole of the male population of entire towns. Gone.

A man named Thomas threw open the flap of the tent and looked inside, "Hello Henry," he said. "The mail has finally come. Emery has gotten a package with some whiskey and some baked goods. Cough, cough. Come on, before it's gone."

The real world seemed so far away. New Hampshire might as well have been in space. All he could do was stay alive for another day, that's it, he had no other responsibility. There was no simpler goal in the world then to just stay alive. The cough rang out through the whole of the camp, and although sickly sounding, it represented life, those that were still alive, those that had somehow made it off the field. The thought gave him, in between a tirade of his own coughs, as he slipped out of his tent, a minor moment of solace.