Do You Have a Last Wish? — The Other Side

A two-sided story — Part 1

“Do You Have a Last Wish?”: Same story, different perspective. Rewind and read. In either order.

“Do you have a last wish?”

His words definitely eliminated every doubt for me. This was it. I did have the idea that I might not survive this war in the back of my mind when I had first decided to be part of it, but I had always had hope — until that moment. The last drop of that hope completely vanished with those five words said in a monotonous tone, as if they were meant to gently guide me through my last breaths.

Validating this feeling surprisingly provided me with a relatively calm attitude as I accepted my final fate. My focus was so centered on my thoughts that I did not feel the frigidity of the snow covering my calves and my knees. I do not remember reaching that level of lucidity in my thinking before.

Swiping away the fear allowed my mind to start visualizing with more clarity every detail around me, as well as every detail of any memory I could recall.

I looked at the muzzle pointed at me. A bullet could be fired at any moment out of it to wreck my face and put a final stop to my existence. I thought about how this wasn’t how things were meant to be. I remembered how all of this started and how I quickly found myself being trapped in this war.

Then, I looked at my executioner and I saw doubtful eyes. I saw a person that was on my side despite the fact that he was about to execute me. It was obvious that he had been asked to do the dirty work. He would’ve clearly chosen not to do it if he could.

I had been around him for a couple of weeks as part of my mission to collect information on his division’s movements. I had established that he was a good person since then.

And now, the shadow of that once friendly look brought me slight comfort. Given the fact that there was no way to avoid death, I was curiously glad that it was him who was going to take my life. I would’ve even picked him over others to do it.

“You don’t belong here.”

Words kept naturally falling off my lips as if I was an oracle.

“I can see it in your eyes. You’re a good man, not a war man. You don’t belong here. And neither do I, to be honest. Neither do any of my people nor yours that got trapped into this fucking mess.”

He was inevitably the last person I was going to talk to. So I was just going to say everything that crossed my mind. I just kept going.

“I never wanted to believe them when they started talking about a third world war. I believed that those things were gone with humanity’s past. I thought that this was the era where humans would seek to achieve the peace that we had been longing for for several generations. But I guess it’s not.”

Then, I thought of his question again. “Do you have a last wish?”

I shut my eyes for a while and I saw scenes from my life passing like a photographic film and I was able to distinguish each and everyone of them and remember everything down to the very last detail.

I saw all the pending issues I had in my life. And, curiously, I didn’t think of my repair garage, closed since January 2031 when all of this started. I didn’t think about my dreams of closing the garage and start living off my photography. I had been pushing away that dream ever since I entered the infinite life loop, having to constantly do a list of nothings in order to keep the other meaningless things of my daily life in order.

I did not think about all of that.

I thought about the decision that I had taken, which led to a series of consequences that led me to this very situation. From the moment I left to the one time I failed to encrypt the line reporting to my guys. The stare of the enemy who found me ducking in the rear trying to reach them. The moment everything fell apart for me. My one, only, and single mistake.

“Do I have a last wish? I can give you many of those. Go back in time and prevent those bastards from signing the goddamn charter and save thousands of innocent lives. Step back from the military and keep on being the person that I used to be. Man, I was so stupid feeling the obligation to “act like a man” and prove myself to my people and my girl.”

Then I thought about the things that I had always thought I could retrieve. The things for which every day had been a new opportunity for me to try to fix; but which, for some reason, I never did. And now, for the first time, I am sure I will never have another shot to do so.

“Actually, if I am wishing for things, I would wish to go back and relive one of those easy mornings where I would wake up next to her, not worrying about anything, staring into each others’ eyes until we would lose track of time, never getting enough of it, until she would say how lucky she feels for having me. That’s when I would kiss her on the forehead and she would smile but still nag because I didn’t say anything in return. I wish I could go back to being that happy person before I fucked up and gave up that for this.”

Yeah, I thought about my wife of course. She was my everything and ever since I had left for this war, I’ve been nothing. We had plans for kids after the war. But, we had decided that this was not a safe world and it won’t be fair to bring some innocent souls to endure the accumulation of human stupidity.

“I wish I never kicked that first-grade kid when I was in mid-school in front of his classmates because I thought I was a bad guy and needed to show it off. If I could only apologize to him and give him back his backpack. Do you think he’s in the war as well?” I asked, not really expecting anything in return.

“Well, it looks like he had some experiences as a kid that could turn him into a tough guy. I bet he is in the war.”

Hope is dangerous. And his getting-along-answer gave me hope again. There I was again. I had little hope in the beginning, then it all vanished and I had none. And now, I was allowing myself to have hope again. A Roller-coaster.

But again it didn’t last.

He looked at me with eyes full of anger and aimed his gun right towards my face. A while ago, he was this guy I had empathy for. All of a sudden, I hated him again for what he was going to be, my killer.

I closed my eyes, lifted up my head and thought back to my childhood hoping to remember some of the prayers I used to say in bed before going to sleep. Since then, I had swung between uncertain beliefs for almost my entire life. I stammered some of those prayers, in case my childhood beliefs would turn out to be true.

My heartbeat synchronized with my killer’s accelerating heavy breathing. The calm attitude that had inhabited me in the previous long minutes had quickly faded and left me with an escalating anguish.

And then, I just wanted to go. I wanted it all to be just finished. Let me go. Just fire the goddamn —

*BANG*

The transcendent sound of the bullet suddenly put every other background sound on pause. The sound of the trees, the wind, the rotation of the earth.

It left me with an uncomfortable and loud buzzing in my ears. But I wasn’t gone.

“Or is this how it is? No harm, no pain? No long obscure tunnel with a light at the end?” I thought.

I cautiously half-opened my eyes and everything was the same as it was.

Should I be delighted or disappointed? In my confusion, I heard two successive falls behind me. The second one was heavier than the first, but both falls were muffled by the cottoned surface.

The sound of footsteps obstructed by the thick layer of snow was getting closer. I finally dared to look. I saw my rescuer, face-covered, shooting my to-be killer again to make sure he was definitely out of the game.

I looked up at the sky and it seemed to me that I briefly saw a small blur elevating away from the body. A moment of hallucination quickly cut short by my rescuer.

“An ally drone is on the way. We have to leave the northern forest as soon as possible.” She said with a firm voice as she helped me stand up. “Sorry for the late service, but we were not going to let you down, agent 4–0–1.”

Why was I not thrilled by the idea of having a second life to embrace? I had made my peace with everything and mourned my death. Why did she have to change the fate that was written for me and that I had accepted?

I was not thankful for what she did. In fact, I despised her for saving me.

I got up and ran alongside my rescuer.

Getting on my feet, running away, and feeling the breeze gave me new wings.

I was smiling. Freedom. There is nothing like it.

I was ready for life again.

This is a two-sided story — Part 1:

“Do You Have a Last Wish?”: Same story, different perspective. Rewind and read. In either order.

© Omar Gahbiche 2020