(The Things They Carried, reimagined from the perspective of Ted Lavender)
Boom-down, he said. Like cement.
I watched curiously as Kiowa described my death, a death which I had no memory of. I glanced over at the hollow faces of my fellow soldiers. They looked more dead than I felt. It’s a strange feeling, to be conscious but not alive, to see your own body on the ground with a bullet through it. Strange, but not frightening as one might expect it to be. It feels … light.
I’m not sure why I’m still here. My body has left for home, yet I remain with my platoon. I guess a part of me feels like I can’t leave. At least not yet, not until it’s over and I know that they’re safe. As I watched them move forward, I felt a bit of the weight I once carried return to me. Although this time it felt different, because I didn’t feel the strain on my back, I felt it in my soul. The lightness I had felt earlier was the release of the weight of my life, but as I watched the other soldiers move and I saw the grief they carried, the grief I had put upon them, that’s when the guilt began to creep in.
I had feared death all my life, but I had also dreamed of it, or more accurately of an escape. I never voiced this, none of us ever did, but I know that we all wanted to leave this hell we were trapped in. We were all too embarrassed of our cowardice to admit that we feared violence and death. We all felt the overwhelming anxiety over all the possibilities of what could happen, due to all the uncertainty. We all wanted out, but we didn’t have the strength to be weak, so we stayed.
Now, I finally have the chance to leave, but I can’t seem to do it. In part, I’m scared of what comes next. I’m scared of the consequences for what I’ve done and the pain and suffering that I have caused. Maybe I deserve to be punished. Maybe it will make the guilt a little easier to carry. I think that’s what’s really keeping me here. I have a duty to my fellow soldiers and a mission to complete, so how can I leave? I need to carry something. I can’t leave it all on them. It’s not fair. None of this is fair. I have to be a man. I have to stay. But maybe… It's too late.
I watched as Lieutenant Cross burned his letters and photos, and I felt a change in him after he had done it. He was moving on, as a soldier should.
There’s nothing left for me here. I thought I was staying for their sake, but I think I’m just staying for myself. It’s out of my control now, just as it had been from the start of this damned war. I have to follow orders now and move on. I can’t keep dwelling on the death of a soldier.
Wow, this is a really well written post. You do a great job of communicating the conflicting emotions that Ted Lavender may have been feeling at the time. I especially enjoyed reading the paragraph where you describe Ted's fear of the future and how he feels obligated to stay there and carry the burden of the war alongside those around him rather than prioritizing himself and his own health by leaving. Great work!
ReplyDeleteThis is a really cool and literal interpretation of the way Ted "haunts" the platoon. "they look more dead than I do" is a good way of phrasing the toll Ted's death took on his friends. It's also a nice idea that Ted got to leave his anxiety behind after dying, got that weight lifted off him.
ReplyDeleteI love your choice to write a (quite literally) out of body experience. I never would have thought to view the story through Ted Lavender's eyes, at least not in the way you have. I think that your writing from Teds prospective is a interesting choice because as someone who was always looking for an escape, he got the most objective escape of all. I liked that you wrote Ted so that death wasn't even a true escape from the war, it worked well with the idea of the story; even the dead carry guilt.
ReplyDeleteYour reimagining was really great to read! I love your choice in perspective, especially since Ted Lavender is such an important character, yet we barely actually know much about him at all. I also love how you kept with the theme of carrying things, with Ted feeling much lighter now that he doesn't have to carry the stresses of that life anymore, however he still has to carry the guilt and responsibility for his platoon. I think you do a great job of also in a way showing how the effects of war can never truly disappear, and the people involved will always carry around that suffering.
ReplyDeleteThis was super interesting to read! I like how you framed the story from Ted Lavender's perspective and your point about how death could also have been viewed as an escape from the burdens of being a solider. I enjoyed the style of the post, and I liked the details and word-play you used like the line "we didn't have the strength to be weak." You did a great job of encapsulating the fear of the soldiers and also the internal struggles that they would have gone through.
ReplyDeleteYour perspective was really unique and well written. I was reminded of the ghost from “Black-Eyed Women” in your first paragraph with the theme of the ghost being more alive than the living. I thought the similarity was interesting since both stories deal with trauma and the living have enormous burdens on them (and the theme of carrying their grief with them was also present in the story along with the physical things they carried). Overall, your post did an awesome job of keeping the same style and theme of “The Things They Carried.” Great post!
ReplyDeleteWriting from the perspective of an actual ghost is definitely not something I would think of doing, yet you pulled it off really well. The way you portrayed Ted Lavender was very interesting, as although he no longer had any physical burden to carry, he still felt an immense sense of guilt for the grief he had added to his platoon's already heavy burden, and therefore felt obligated to stay with them. I also thought you gave him some solid character development even after his death, as seeing Jimmy Cross move on reminded him that moving on is what a soldier should do, no matter the uncertainty. Great post!
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