0. On the Subject of Commercial Films Being Too Intense in a Medieval Fantasy
0. On the Subject of Commercial Films Being Too Intense in a Medieval Fantasy
A life spent watching movies was far better than a life like a movie.
- ooo
I put a period on today's diary entry and closed the notebook.
This damned war.
The end was in sight for the notebook I'd been using as a diary since the middle of the Fourth World War.
I dusted off my pants and stood up from the rubble of a building that had collapsed from shelling after we'd occupied the area.
"Sergeant Kim. You're still writing that diary, huh."
As I adjusted my gear, a white guy, his face smeared black with soot, spoke to me.
"Someone's gotta keep writing it, don't they. Somebody has to carry on that bastard's story."
My notebook fluttered, pointing to a nearby body, covered by a poncho.
In this chilly weather, my comrade, his poncho pulled all the way over his face, lay with his eyes closed in a peace too profound.
The white guy who'd talked to me started to say something back but then shut his mouth like his throat had closed up. He adjusted his helmet and muttered, forcing the words out.
"That goddamn black son of a bitch. A spotter who kicks it faster than his sniper—how the fuck does that make any sense."
That was the last thing I remembered him saying.
*
Not wanting his mouth to freeze crooked from lying on the cold ground, I somehow slung him over my shoulder and hauled him to a mortician.
Unlike our black friend who'd gone ahead of us, this guy had been counter-sniped relatively close to a city, so we could at least hold a funeral for him.
With one less man, that's how our Ranger Company ended up fighting on, without even a sniper team anymore.
"I... If only I'd done a better job as his spotter..."
The private we'd thrown in as a temporary spotter since the original one went first was wallowing in self-blame.
He sat in a chair outside the morgue where the sniper brothers lay in repose, his helmet at his side, forehead pressed to his knees.
"It's not your fault, so stop blaming yourself."
I'd had moments like that too.
I gave him a pat on the shoulder and then walked over to the company commander.
He was chewing on a cigarette, working it between his teeth, then spat on the ground.
"Did it get wet?"
"Yeah. Seemed shaky at the river crossing, and I guess it all fell into the water."
Contrary to his words, his pants were spotless, without a single drop of moisture.
Strangely, the only wetness was the dampness that soaked his cheeks.
I took out my notebook and wrote today's diary entry.
*
We were cut off.
A few minutes earlier, a lucky shot from a mortar had hit the radio operator, leaving only one of his arms and obliterating the rest of him along with the radio.
With no way of knowing whether HQ would come to rescue us, a Jewish private spoke up.
"Sergeant. Are you still writing that diary?"
"■■, that guy, said when the war was over he was gonna make this whole war into a film. Now that he can't write his diary anymore, someone's gotta keep writing it so we can finish that film someday."
"Oh. So does that make me the hero of the movie? The guy who was total trash at the start of the war, but then awakens and becomes a hero later."
"Don't kid yourself. You're still dead weight."
"Just you watch. If I earn a Medal of Honor later on, I'm throwing those words right back at you, Sergeant."
"Please, by all means, do."
As I talked with the Jewish private, a huge biracial guy came over and cracked a joke.
"Then you don't even have to put me in the movie, just stick me on the sound team."
"You?"
"Hey, for your information, I'm a music school grad."
"Then make me the director of photography."
The war correspondent who had been trailing our company raised his hand and chimed in.
"Then I'm the lead, and you're the director, Sergeant Kim."
"Why would I be the director? I'm the lead, and you're the supporting role, sir."
"What?"
"I'm the one writing the diary, so why would you be the lead, sir?"
"You little shit? Hey! Someone grab this bastard's notebook!"
The company commander put me in a headlock and started smacking my helmet.
The other guys in the company were cackling and trying to snatch my notebook, while I did whatever I could to keep it away from them.
Click.
The war correspondent snapped a photo of us in that moment.
*
"Abububu aububu. (Ugh, this is so boring.)"
"Oh my, Allen. Looks like someone needs his diaper changed."
Six months into my reincarnation.
I grumbled to myself as I watched the television my mother had turned on.
My memories, which had ended with the brain-rattling roar of bombardment, continued in this awesome medieval fantasy world.
Honestly, hoping to survive after racking up that many death flags was absurd in the first place.
I'd known I was going to die in that isolated situation anyway, so I'd just crammed in as many normally-taboo flags as I could. When they all got cashed in less than an hour later, I didn't really feel that it was unfair.
But that wasn't the important thing.
The important thing was that I could resume the dream I had failed to pursue in my previous life.
The Middle Ages?
My ambitions were not so half-baked as to get hung up on something like that.
================================================================
"Son. What is all this?"
"What do you mean, what is it? It's action. Doesn't it get your adrenaline pumping, Father?"
"A warning order came this time from the Counterintelligence Department telling us to restrain ourselves."
"Yeep! Oppose censorship! I pursue cultural freedom!"
"... They say the agents injured while guarding you number fifteen this month alone."
"Ah. Sorry."
It seemed commercial films were simply too intense for a medieval fantasy world.