Monroe lays in the medical bed. Every blood vessel in his body felt like fire. Blue veins contrasting his pale skin that was once a healthy warm ivory. He could feel every muscle in his body turn against him.
He reaches over to the side table, grabbing his pocket journal and pen. He forces himself to sit up a bit. He opens to a new page and begins to write,
I begin to wonder if my sickness is a worse fate than being shot to pulp in the trenches. I wonder if this sickness is worse than the fate of men being blinded by mustard gas. I feel my soul regretting helping those men who had influenza, as now I’ve caught it.
Monroe feels his chest tighten, his eyes begin to sting. He begins to cough, his chest constricting, crushing his lungs. His lungs feel full, not of air, but of liquid. He gasps for air before his body forces him to cough violently. He collapses against his pillow, his journal falling against his chest.
He looks at the side table, a water cup sits on the surface. When he reaches for it, he catches a look at the person next to him. The man next him lies still in the white sheets. He looks pale, his veins visible.
He’s dead.
Monroe stares at the man’s body. He feels grief for him, he isn’t shocked to see a man’s dead body. He’s seen many men bleed out on him when he was in the trenches. He’s seen the gruesome deaths young men his age faced. He’s seen men get their heads shot off. He’s aided men with their rotting body parts, caused by the swamp environments of the trenches. The medic in him wishes he could’ve aided the young man next to him.
He watches as the women in blue dresses with white aprons and their faces covered with a mask, blanket the man’s body. Despite their mouths and noses covered, he can read their eyes. They are experiencing the same grief he is. Those women probably wish they could’ve saved him or at least comfort him in his final moments.
Two men come into his view, wearing face coverings as well, lift the dead man’s body from the bed and carry him out. Monroe watches as a man he didn’t even know or seen alive get carried away, swaddled in the white sheet. The bed next to him was now empty.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” A nurse places her gloved hand on his shoulder. Her eyes read of empathy for him.
“It’s okay, I have seen worse as a medic”
“You’re a medic?” The nurse looks at him appalled.
“Yes, I mean this is how I got here.”
“I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have-”
“It’s okay ma’am, captain said I filled my duty helping people”
“I’m sure you did, you did good soldier” The nurse fixes his blanket. She grabs the pen and journal and puts it on the side table.
“I’ll get you some more water, get some sleep, goodnight, um”, She gestured her hand out. `
“Monroe, Monroe Morris. Goodnight Ma’am.”
“Goodnight Mr. Morris.” She takes the water cup and walks away.
Monroe feels his chest crush his lungs again and he spits out another cough. He shivers and pulls the blanket over his body. He lets his fatigue take over his body. In his dreams, he dreams of being at home, in his room, sitting at his writing desk writing stories with his favorite fountain pen, spinning stories of outlaws running west.
Monroe wakes with a sudden jolt, every muscle in his body in great pain. He tries to sit up to breathe, his lungs burning and heavy. As he sat up, his lungs constricted, trying to get him to cough but he couldn’t, air wasn’t coming through.
“Monroe! Sit up”, the nurse rushed to his bed side. She hoisted him up to sit up higher.
Monroe still couldn’t get air into his lungs, but he began to cough.
“Straighten up, you need to open up your lungs.”
Once he sat up straighter, he felt air come back into his lungs and he began to violently cough. As he kept coughing, he felt liquid come up his throat.
“Here, spit it in here,” The nurse brings his half empty water cup in front of his mouth.
Monroe spat whatever came up into the cup, his cough becoming less violent.
“Do you feel okay?”
“I’m fine, not for long though, I’m already dead” Monroe slumps back down into the bed.
“Please don’t say that Monroe, you’ll be fine,”
“Don’t lie to me, I caught Influenza, I’ve seen soldiers die from it. Once they get it, they’re dead.” he snapped at the nurse.
The nurse looked at him solemnly. Her mouth and nose were covered,but Monroe could see it in her eyes that she wanted to comfort him and was doing her job.
“I’m sorry, um”
“Caroline”
“I apologize Ms. Caroline, I suppose I’m just angry,”
“It’s fine Monore, I just wanted to help. Do you need anything else?”
“I want to write a letter.” Monroe says blankly.
“I can get that for you, I’ll be back in a bit.” Caroline gets up and walks away.
Monroe reaches for his fountain pen at the bedside table. As he does, he looks over to the bed that once had the man, now had another person. A young man, younger than Monroe. The boy looked no more than 18 years old. Caroline comes back with the paper, obstructing Monroe’s view of the young boy.
“Let me know what the address is and I’ll get it to the post.” She hands a few sheets of paper and quickly leaves to aid other nurses, before Monroe can even say ‘thank you.’
Monroe places the paper on a bible that was sitting on the side table since he got there, he thinks for a second. He breathes and touches the fountain pen tip to the paper to write;
To whoever finds this letter first and reads it, I’m dead. My name was Monroe Morris. I’m from the United States. I will be dead at 18 years old. I was drafted in January of 1918. I became a medic. I helped many men survive injuries. I watched men bleed to death under my aid.
I have influenza. I must’ve got it from when I was helping men. I don’t know if I regret helping those men on the western front. My empathy and need to help others has cost me my life. However I knew once I was called to protect my country, I knew I had a higher chance of dying than living. I still held out hope that I was going to go home and live out my dream.
I’ve lost hope as I started feeling the symptoms of Influenza. As my hope died, my dreams did. I’ve dreamed of being a writer. I wanted to be an author of many books. I’ve had ideas. On my writing desk at my home, I’ve had many stories that were ready for publication. My final wish is that at least one of them is published by one of them.
Miss Caroline, if you’re reading this, thank you for everything, I’m sorry that you couldn’t have cured me. I just wish you would deliver the letter home or you read it yourself and share my stories.
The flower that was budding and was about to bloom in the spring was now stomped out by the heavy boots of men who are now blinded.
Monroe Morris.
He signs the letter with the address. He puts both of them on the nightstand. He collapses in the bed, the pain in every muscle getting worse. His head hurts greatly to the point he doesn’t even want to open his eyes, the mere act of using his sight causes pain to his head. He squeezes his eyes shut and hopes the pain ends when he inevitably dies. His lungs feel tight and small, full of fluid. His cough is sparse but violent. He feels his body beginning to give up on fighting the sickness.
Monroe is certain he will die in the middle of night. He feels tears weld up from the physical pain but also the emotional pain. He needed someone to be there with him. He felt like a little boy who is scared and wants the comfort of his mother. He musters up the strength.
“CAROLINE!” The roughness of his throat from yelling causes him to cough more violently. He pushes through and continues to yell for Caroline.
A fellow nurse hears him and rushes to find Caroline. Quickly coming back with her.
“A patient needs you, he’s in a ton of pain!” the nurse says as she leads her to Monroe’s bedside.
“What’s wrong child?” Caroline tightly clutching Monroe’s hand.
“I think I’m dying, everything hurts,” Monroe moans out.
“You’re okay, you’re not dying, I’m sorry you’re in pain, I can get more morphin,” Caroline tries to let go of Monroe’s hand but Monroe tightens his grip.
“No please don’t leave, I don’t want morphin, I just want someone with me right now.”
Caroline kneels down at Monroe’s bedside. She uses both of her hands to hold his hand.
“I’ll stay as long as you need me to.” Caroline begins to tear up slightly, realizing that Monroe was dying and wouldn’t make it through the night.
She couldn’t save him, but the action that she would be with him in his last moments brings a slight comfort to her. She watched as Monroe slowly lost his energy, the light slowly leaving his eyes.
She was watching a young man her age lose his life. She has seen it many times, she felt a short grief but had to move on. Only to watch it happen again and again. The horrifying thing was the men at first were way older than her, 15 years at most. But as the months went on, and those men died, the younger the men came in, the younger they died.
When she looks at Monroe, she knows Monroe is younger than her by a few years. Maybe this is why she felt so much anguish watching him die right in front of her. She only feared that after Monroe, the soldiers would only get younger.
Caroline squeezes Monroe’s hand, only for it to remain still.
Monroe was gone before she even realized.
She let go of his hand and stood up. She fixed the blanket as if Monroe was asleep. She looks at him one last time before she has to call the men to take his body away. She looks to see if Monroe had any belongings on the side table.
The letter.
She picks it up and sees the address. It’s addressed to no one. Monroe only wrote it to whoever finds it. She puts the letter in her pocket, wipes her tears and forces herself to tend to the other patients in the ward.
She goes to another patient, a man who was older than her, who had severe blindness from the mustard gas. When she went to grab his hand to let him know she was there, she looked up to see the men carry away Monroe’s body, swaddled in the white blankets.
“What’s happening?” The blind soldier asks.
“Excuse me sir” she let go of his hand and walked away, unable to stop her tears. She rushed outside and collapsed against the wall of the building. She throws off her face mask and weeps.
She weeps for Monore and the other men who were too young to be dead. Her cries are heard by no one. Her cries aren’t just for Monroe, but the cries for the future men that will die in her hands and the inevitable that she would never be able to save them, only to watch as life left from their bodies.
