[ WP ] Walk me through a soldier 's last day alive .

Tired. Very tired. No one talks about how tired it feels. The stench of death decay can surround a person, the gruesome aftermath of a horrific battle, the psychological torment that wroughts a man's psyche. 
 
 And all he wanted to do was sleep. He wanted to collapse and fall down and join the bodies strewn about him. Friend or foe matters not, for all men are equal in death. The bitter, gray dawn demarking the end of seemingly eternal night. If there were colors in the sky, he doubted he could see them. 
 
 He grasped vacantly at anything for support before slumping to his knees. The soft squelch of dirt greeted his hearing. A muddy mixture of countless imprints crossing one another chaotically. The bodies surrounded him. Death surrounded him. The impending darkness of finality was finally closing in, after so long he had evaded it, but its icy grip had finally caught up to him. 
 
 He wanted to fight for his friends. He wanted to fight for his family. He wanted to fight for his country. But that was so long ago. He glanced skywards one last time. A muddied hill formed at the edge of his vision. Rising out of the ashes of this forsaken battlefield was the flag of the victor. The flag of his country. 
 
 The flag stood high and proud on the hill. The sun rose gently behind it, ita beauty casting color and irridescent to his once bleak vision. He felt a swell of pride. He felt comfort. And he felt the end drawing near. 
 
 The flag faded into beautiful, indescrible colors. Life had meaning. It was worth fighting for. His vision faded abruptly into white. 
 
... 
 
 He's been sitting still for way too long. Is he okay? Maybe someone should do something. The balding man walked up to the homeless man, carefully stepping around the vagrant. He was hesitant to show his concern, but he was n't that bad of a person to just ignore him. 
 
 The man had stumbled drunkenly into the middle of the street, fell to his knees as if praying momentarily before falling to the ground. He ran a hand over his bald head sheepishly before pulling out a napkin and carefully prodding the dirty man. 
 
 He turned him over and saw a unkempt and dirty face with long hair and graying beard. His military jacket looks like it had been worn for at least a decade and never been taken off. He smelled like he did n't know what a shower was and that sobriety was an unfortunate consequence of not drinking enough. A vacant, almost blissful smile adorned this man, his yellowed, chipped teeth showing shamelessly. This man was dead. 
 
 The bald man sighed, pulled out his cell phone, and dialed out. `` Yeah, I'm going to be late for work.''
