#fruitscones

Forgot to post this but redraw

Original, doodles under cut

“What exactly are you fighting for?” The question, once a passing, trivial thought, had suddenly become real, dissipating into the swirling steam between them.

Soldier paused, his hand on the door of his locker, the thought to close it still there, but halted for now. The question took precedence. A toothy, crooked smile spread on his face, a front tooth missing, like a spent casing. He pressed a finger to his lip – a surrogate for a cigar. “To keep this country out of the hands of the enemy.” The patriot straightened, standing taller; a habit founded upon a lifetime of salutes and pledges, stances reinforced enough to survive in a deteriorating brain.

“BLU is not at all interested in America, mein Freund. Such a pursuit would be absurd.”

“Not yet, doc.” He corrected, a dire warning in his tone, and an underlying smugness, the belief that he was thinking ahead when he was in fact, sideways. “What do you think will happen if we let them win this war? They’ll kick us while we’re down and come for our freedom!”

“Freedom.” Medic scoffed. What freedom was there for a man like himself in this country? It was only here that he was peculiar, deviant. There were no playful, almost affable euphemisms for his proclivities, no friends or warmer Bruder. “The same freedom that barred you from joining the war?”

Jane cocked his head, the reality failing to strike him. It had long since been swallowed up by daydreams of crushing the skulls of Nazis under his boots. A sentiment Medic shared. “Huh?” He blinked hard, processing what had just been said, unearthing what had been buried. He was quick to call the shovelman back to action with a wave of the hand. “There had been a mistake. I am America’s best soldier, private. They couldn’t deny me.” He cocked a proud thumb towards his broad, powerful chest. Jane was a man of rigid routine, and could be seen exercising even after a hard day of battle. Medic, guiltily, had watched on occasion, pretending to be nose deep in study. The twin scars beneath each pectoral would flex with the man, stretching against the skin. Medic still remembered working each stitch into freshly carved flesh.

“Of course, Jane.”

These illogical responses were not uncommon, and after prodding the American with similar questions, they failed to surprise him anymore. The man was a mystery, and Ludwig’s curiosities went beyond Soldier’s ailments – osteoarthritis, noise-induced hearing loss, shell shock, Kanner’s syndrome, to name a few – and into the crumbling ruins of the man’s head, no doubt having endured one too many explosives. The only pillar holding it up now was decorated with the flag he revered, like a crucifix hanging above the door. How could put his hand to his heart, and utter promise after promise day after day to a symbol that had rejected him?

“Have you been taking care of your scars?”

He looked down, thinking for a moment. “Negatory.”

“You held on to the moisturiser, I hope?” He gestured to Soldier’s locker.

He opened it, eyes scanning the shelves for the bottle of cream. His locker was stuffed full of trinkets; coins, cigars, shoe polish, razors and medals. Taped on the door, was the cover page of a magazine, decorated with an illustration of a soldier with short, dark hair, and soft, rounded features typical of a young man, standing tall in the pews of a church with his cap held to his heart – Willie Gillis, the boy next door, sent off to war.

Medic spotted the moisturiser first, buried beneath a pile of spare rockets. He unscrewed the cap, dipping his bare fingers inside before placing them to the American’s chest. He massaged the ointment into the pink scars, watching it fade into the skin, leaving it glistening. “That’s an old issue,” Ludwig began, nodding his head towards the man’s locker. “Why keep it for so long?”

Soldier’s gaze wandered to the magazine cover, though he likely had no need to remember the composition he had lovingly admired for twenty years. “It’s the picture of everything an American should be. Patriotic, disciplined, respectful.” Jane worked his way into his undershirt, and unfolded his uniform, as he had done a hundred times before. “You ought to be proud too, doc, or I’ll be whipping it into your sorry ass.”

It clicked then. This image was not serving as a decorative poster, but instead, as a mirror. It was but one tenet in an idea, an America constructed from radio programming, rigid schooling and idyllic television. Such a perfect place cast in black and white did not exist outside of this old soldier’s head. He had wished for it so terribly that he had made it real, fought for it, built it on a foundation of severed limbs, broken bones and Rockwellian imagery. His dedication to it would be admirable, if his efforts were not entirely futile.