wake up, wake up

wake up, wake up

fiction
edward w pritchard

Oh no, don't let it be the trenches again. God please, oh please, don't let me wake up in the trenches again there in Verdun France. Not 1914, anywhere or any time but July of 1914. I don't want to be in the trenches in World War One in 1914 fighting with the French Army against the Germans.

Let me wake up at the beach at the small Lake. When I was sixteen. laying next to a pretty girl on a dock in a pink bathing suit. Laying on the hot wet boards and watching the girl.

I can hear the shells and the bullets. Someone is yelling in French.

Don't open your eyes. Anywhere but Verdun France.