Soldiers

WE WERE KIDS, JIMMY AND I. Eight, nine. The yard was muddy and damp. I was trimming grass with hedging shears, the blades rusted and slow. Jimmy waved a stick at mongoloid shapes that danced in the shadows beneath the maple and oak trees. To my right was a woman's foot. Her flesh had sunk into a sinkhole of vines and grass, until only this appendage remained, a rotten flag of surrender. "I forgot I was in Vietnam," I said, slicing the grass. "Yes," Jimmy replied. His eyes were dead. He knew. He was there.

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