THE NOTION OF DESTINY NAGS AT US. from Beyond Fear, here is a clip of a chapter that rams home the point for an airman down behind enemy lines. The scene: Mac and Rocket are stacking the dead bodies of Soviet soldiers to block the cold on the Charyn Desert in Kazakhstan. ____________ Chapter 201 Written in Blood Stripping dead soldiers is a distasteful task, but Mac preservers. “Rocket, when our survival is at stake, we have no option but to do what it takes. No moral reasoning applies.” “Mac, Fear instilled by the Christian value system often clouds our vision and prompts us to turn our back on what we need to do, as cold as that act may be, when we need to do it most. “You are one of the few who can override that taboo and turn it to your favor.” Looking for a place to sit for a moment, Mac nods, “If I had taken every dictum of the Catholic faith to heart, I’d be saying Mass right now rather than stacking these dead stiffs. What I do know however, is that if I do not stack these stiffs, I will not survive the predicament I find myself in and neither will you. ” “Damn Mac, there are times, when turn the most unsavory task into a piece of work that cannot wait to be done.” As both men pause to readdress their grim work, with no regard for its source, Mac takes a long draw of water from a dead soldier’s canteen. To staunch the pain that again comes to gnaw at him, he takes another morphine syrette out of his pack and slams it into his leg. As the pain slowly fades, his thoughts begin to race. He can only marvel at how cruel life can truly be. Two nights before plunging into the abyss he is now immersed, he was lying in a warm bed with Nikki snuggled next to him. (c)
Posted on: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 18:21:09 +0000