Smoking a cigarette in Afghanistan, I rivet my eyes over the horizon. I am taking a drag of my cigarette in the process. I think about the different layers of life I’ve been navigating, and how I’ll ever try and recite to people the things. The invisible things—equity of outcomes to wager different lives.
In the evening, two cooks prepare meals for the Marines. It is a rudimentary process. Out here, everything is.
Dinners come prepackaged. They are lowered into a hot-water boiler and heated to a specific temperature for consumption. The water, often bubbling and boiling, must reach a certain temperature before the lid can close.
The two cooks one evening, accompanied by two other Marines, are having a cigarette. They pour water into the grill and set the prepackaged meals aside for preparation.
On the Forward Operating Base (FOB), feral cats run amok all along the sand-filled HESCO barriers. Giant squares filled with sand lying on top one another.
As the appliance heats up, the water begins to boil. One of the cooks prepares to drop the meals in for heating, when a cat vaults out from behind the tent curtain, falling feet first into the broiler.
The cooks and two other Marines, unable to do anything, listen to the cat scream and cry as it is boiled alive. Water kicking up in all directions. All they can do is watch, as they digest with their eyes the painful taking of an animal out of their control. When the screaming stops, they turn the machine off and wait for the water to cool. Retrieving the dead animal’s corpse, they pluck it into a black garbage bag.
“I’ve got an idea,” one of them says.
Tired from a night shift, I light a cigarette and look toward the morning sun. The sunrise helps alleviate a drifting mind. Putting at ease everything.
I make my way to my cot to grab something, a black trash bag lies on top. The bag, crumpled up, as if to remain closed to hold something inside. On top of the bag is a note. “A merry gift, for a merry Corporal,” it reads.
I sit next to the bag and start to peer inside. The plastic sticks together and makes it rather hard to pull apart. The friction of the plastic scratches the inside, creating an annoyingly familiar sound like the screeching sound of a potato chip bag.
Still sticking together, I have trouble attempting to pull it apart. I muscle my right hand hand in the bag to separate the sides. Out of vision, my hand contacts the mummified corpse of a broiled cat. The fur is greasy, slimy and hot. The feline’s teeth are exposed, giving it a menacing look. Eyes still wide open, looking directly at me. Looking up at me. The eyes, big and yellow, match the facial expression of a cornered and scared animal. The eyes, looking up at me. I slowly close the bag and stare at the floor. I stare at the floor, and decide not to move for quite some time.
Recently and newly promoted to Corporal, the joke was to preside a gift. At this turn in deployment, I work the night shift. The cat lay on the cot for hours, with no one knowing what was inside. Only a few were in on the joke, while the rest went about their normal duties. Men came and went, sleeping next to the corpse of an animal without realizing it. Without realizing the feline’s struggle. They wanted to play a joke, so they wrapped it in a plastic trash bag and left it on a cot. The animal’s story, coming to a halt, with only the face as a reflection of its final thoughts.
Brought to the attention of the others who slept in the vicinity of the dead animal, it is met with mixed opinions. Hilarity and frustration. Anger and sadness. Some thinking it an innocent prank.
I return to the cot to dispose of the animal. It hasn’t moved. Opening the bag, with those glaring yellow eyes reflecting my image. A live television screen. Those sun colored eyes, with the yellow rods and cones, reflecting my image. I wonder if the animal sees me?
With my bare hands, I grasp the torso. Still sticking to the trash bag, I force it free from the plastic. I lay it on the top for a moment to expose the corpse a final time. I start to review the different funerals I was absent. Funerals I did not attend. In my head, I say their names, while staring at the dead mummified corpse of the feline. The image, still broadcasting my image like a live television.
I pick the cat up from it’s stomach. The greasy fur, leaving a slimy residue on my hands like a slug.
I make my way to the burn pit. The place we dispose of our trash. Only 20 yards where I sleep. I carry the corpse by hand. Eyes still wide open, reflecting my image. I stand in the sea of garbage and trash knee-high. I light the animal on fire and watch it burn. It doesn’t make any sounds this time.
This time, it doesn’t make any sounds.