Colt Model 1911

He pulled the pistol out of his desk drawer and laid it, almost reverently upon the cleaning cloth he had placed there earlier. An old, but in pristine condition, Colt Model 1911 CAL.45 ACP. It looks as good now as it did the day they issued it to him over forty years ago and sent him to South East Asia to shoot baggy arsed farmers armed with cheap Chinese AK knock offs. They were resisting the democracy being given to them by a very generous Uncle Sam at the time.

It was a dark time for everyone concerned. For his nineteenth birthday he got a marriage certificate in the mail one day and his conscription papers the next. Two week later he was in boot camp being told he was a dog shit useless Texan queer boy by an angry drill instructor.

Eight weeks later and he was dropped into a jungle with twenty seven other men, an M16 rifle, a pocket full of ammo and his wits. He still visits that time he spent in hell everyday when an exhaust backfires, POP, or something drops, BANG. Any loud and unexcepted noise really; you can take the man out of a war torn jungle, but you can't take the war torn jungle out of the man. He now knows what to expect from the unexpected, the shakes have almost gone, almost. But every single haunted memory remains.

Upon ensuring the pistol did not have a round in the breech, he worked the action to verify that it was empty, old muscle memories came into play, better to be safe than sorry. He ejected the magazine with a learnt thumb gesture, after ensuring it too was empty and upon verifying this to be so, he slid it back into place and was rewarded by that reassuring click.

A box of bullets sits at arms reach in the top drawer of his drawer. He picks these up, feeling and taking measure of the lethal weight within. Nothing weighs like a box full of bullets. He opens the lid and pulls out half a dozen or more. He ejects the magazine once more and places the pistol on the desk. Slowly he inserts bullet after bullet into the magazine reaching from the box again as required to make up the shortfall. As he nears the magazines limit he feel a shake inside, he knows what is coming and that there is no avoiding it

He reaches over and grabs a bottle of Chivas Regal located conveniently and terribly close by, any port in a storm. A couple of fat gulps later as the alcohol infuses with his system, a quiet calm settles the shakes as he awaits the beginning of a flashback filled anxiety attack. In his mind the storm builds and quakes through his body as a series of shakes and a bout of uncontrollable tremors: A storm of remembered gunfire, the smell of blood and cordite. A storm of pain, men screaming and crying in a darkened jungle. A storm of youth lost to basically what amounted to a global argument slash pissing contest.

Life wasn't the same since his wife died and he didn't know what to do with his days let alone the minutes and hours that they comprised of. Lost in his mind, lost in his house, just lost. In his mind he can vividly see himself cocking the pistol and placing the barrel in his mouth. He can see himself pulling the trigger and painting the wall behind himself with an almost surreal mixture of blood, bones, spittle and brain matter. He wouldn't be the first and by no means will be the last.

And with the last image of the flashback in his confused and tortured mind of a future not yet realised his tremors subside. He can feel the wash of the alcohol course through his system. His breathing becomes normal and the phantom headache slowly abates as clear thought, ingrained training and common sense come to the fore "Fuck that for a joke" he thinks to himself, "Semper Fi"! Trained hands strip the pistol back to its bare components. He reaches into his drawer beside and after a moment of rummaging, pulls out a pair of pliers. With these he bends the firing pin into a useless and unusable angle and throws it into his wastebasket. The rest of the pieces are placed in a paper bag and then a couple of bin liners. These are wrapped tight and securely in gaffe tape and they too joined the pin in the waste basket. War has taken so many lives all ready but it's not having this one.

PEACE MAN!