#into millions upon millions of shards; dying over and over in every reality to save the doctor. compare to: the doctor choosing to spend

[dandelionjack]

i have a maybe lukewarm maybe hot take about this godforsaken show that some people could find mean, but i stand behind it, no elaboration (okay, some elaboration in the tags below… a lot of elaboration)

opinion: if you claim to like clara’s dynamic with the doctor and her character development in series 8 and 9, but simultaneously say you hate the impossible girl arc/elevenclara, you don’t actually understand anything about their relationship and what makes it the way that it is

[sterileflcwer]

Achilles - Eugene Sledge

Word Count: 1,352

Content Warning: Mentions of blood, death, trauma, and war. 

『』

ACHILLES

“Any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.”

-- Homer, The Iliad

When Eugene Sledge returned to Alabama, he felt horribly lost. So many things now felt so terribly pointless. No longer could he see things the way he saw them before he left for the Pacific. Almost everything was marred by the war. The smallest things from a slamming door to a sudden yell could make him jump. He could no longer enjoy hunting the way he had before being thrown into battle. When his father had taken him on a hunting trip soon after Eugene’s return, he had broken down at the thought of taking the life of another creature. 

Unlike most men, Eugene Sledge had very little to return to. Of course, he had his parents and his brother. But they were all consumed in their lives. Edward Sledge Sr. had his medical practice, and his son who shared his name was a decorated Army officer who soon started to work in the town’s bank. Mary Frank Sledge was consumed by the running of her home and social events with other women of the town. So, there Eugene was, left to pick up the pieces of his shattered life. He had the resumption of his college education to look forward to, though that was months away from his return. 

Sidney Phillips encouraged his dear friend to distract himself with a girl. Sid said that you could never forget what you saw in the Pacific, you could only distract yourself. But Eugene couldn’t feel right doing that. He couldn’t hurt some lovely girl just because he was running from his memories of the war, it just wasn’t right.

Before a young man is marched off to war for the first time, he is wide-eyed and optimistic. He believes that he will achieve glory unlike any man before him, that he will save all of his comrades and win the war nearly single-handedly. His chest is swollen with pride. But once he gets to battle, all misconceptions of glory die with each comrade. The rose-colored glasses he wears are shattered, and the shards stab out his eyes. All cries are trapped in his chest, and his heart aches as he begs with an awful God to grant his mercy to these ragged men. God’s mercy rarely comes. And for years, that unforgotten pain tortured him, even in sleep. As Aeschylus wrote so many years ago, “Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our own will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” 

Eugene was among the ranks of these young men, men still in their youth who had aged decades by the time they left battle. Men who could no longer feel human, instead feeling like monsters for the acts of survival they committed while at war. Ghosts of his fallen friends always hung about his shoulders, begging in rasping voices to know why Eugene had betrayed them. To know when he would join the ranks of his comrades once more. To know why he hadn’t helped bring that hope from their graves on islands that Americans would soon forget the names of. 

In those almost hopeless months, he begged to get away from it all. To forget those battles, to forget the metallic smell of blood, to forget the names of those lost, to forget everything he knew about war and how he could kill another man. He just wanted to be a young man again. A young man who dreamed of war and glory but never had to actually experience it. To be a young man who could laugh so carelessly and could date a girl without worrying about how cruel battle may have made him. 

He wanted to forget about the world at war. He wanted to forget about the arrow shot into Achilles’ heel and the field report that only read “All quiet on the western front.” He wanted these to feel like mythologies once more. And yet, they would always be a reality to him. Even as he grew older, he never forgot the war that had stolen away the best years of his life, and the lives of so many other young men his age. 

Of course, during the early half of 1946, he couldn’t see that far into the future. He could only see how he was swallowed by despair and horror at what he had been apart of before he could even buy a drink. How the actions of some men who happened to hold lofty positions had killed millions of boys. Millions of families were ripped to shreds. And for what? Because they weren’t rich enough, because they weren’t powerful enough, because their sons weren’t old enough? The men who led the countries at war often said that the deaths of sons and brothers were necessary sacrifices, that it would lead to a victory for the right side. That instead of mourning, mothers and fathers should feel pride at the sacrifice that their sons had made. But what about the sons that had come back without medals and the title of a commissioned officer? Who instead only brought back memories of the worst things that man was capable of?

Eugene Sledge had returned home after all of the parades of victory had been thrown. He returned to a world that had returned to normalcy. Instead of being greeted with ticker tape and bands, he was greeted by the deafening silence of Alabama in winter. That was all the world could offer him. And that silence festered, almost choking the flame haired man. It screamed at his idling and hesitation, telling him to fulfill the role now expected of him. To go back to the man-- really, the child-- that Eugene was before the war. But everything that had existed before the war no longer existed. Sure, the same buildings stood. Children still played in the park near the town square. But none of it was the same to Eugene. All sense of safety that used to exist for him had disappeared. All of his illusions of home were gone with the war. Now he knew how easily it could all disappear-- how it could all be destroyed in mere moments.

People gossiped about Eugene Sledge. They talked about how he never seemed to be fully present anywhere, as though his mind was occupied by something far off. Most didn’t understand why he seemed so consumed by it all. After all, boys had come home last September with smiling and eager faces, ready to go back to normal. Why couldn’t Eugene Sledge?

Of course, none of them had seen what Eugene had. They hadn’t seen some of their closest friends die for what felt like no reason, they hadn’t heard the cries of dying men. Many of them still believed that it was gallant for a man to sacrifice his life for his country, as they had never had any reason to doubt it. 

But they had never seen those men, those whose sacrifices are often forgotten if not among a lofty list of those who died with him at a certain battle. They had never seen a rotting corpse, clothed in blood stained rags that vaguely represented a uniform. Those who felt the most suffered the most in war, and Eugene had certainly been one of the most sensitive.

In the end, there was nothing beautiful or glorifiable about war toEugene. There was nothing beautiful or noble about crying over a fallen comrade-- it was all just pure pain. Every myth he had been fed about war as a child was now so obviously a gilded lie. No matter what, there was nothing beautiful about the arrow in Achilles’ heel. There was nothing beautiful about what he had experienced. It was all horror that bled together. And he was left to piece it all together in the aftermath.