THE NEW LIEUTENANT

by Allen X. Davis

What’s that on the road up ahead? asked the new lieutenant as their jeep approached the center of the small dusty village. It’s a body sir, answered the driver. It was lying in the morning sun like a pile of dirty laundry. Probably an enemy collaborator left there as a warning, sir. Villagers went about their business as if it wasn’t there. Slow down, said the lieutenant when they were almost up to it. He took out his camera and snapped pictures as they inched along in slow motion. He was fresh out of college and yearned to be back on campus where the future looked bright, but now he was like a snake shedding its skin, never to wear the old skin again. The driver tried not to look but it happened quick like a snapshot. The body was barefoot and gray and he saw himself walking barefoot on the beach back home, his feet squishing into the wet, gray— Okay, let’s go, ordered the LT. At the next village lay another body. The lieutenant did not take out his camera. They did not stop.

A Note About the Author: Allen X. Davis’s short fiction appears or is forthcoming in Gravel, Flash Fiction Magazine, Microfiction Monday Magazine, Madcap Review, A Quiet Courage, Barking Sycamores, and Empty Sink Publishing.