Study of a Paper

        Sergeant Mooney was raking over the mass of limbs, debris, and blood-soaked cloth when something caught his eye from out of the rubble. Traversing closer to the object, he realized the thing that had caught his eye was a red piece of paper. It was a sexy red, the kind they’d paint on the sign of a sleazy motel frequented by pimps, prostitutes, and drug dealers. As if this was its purpose in another life, the red piece of paper lured Mooney over to the chest pocket of a young boy.

        After 6 months overseas, Mooney knew now that all the inhabitants of the small nation they had occupied were the enemy. Seeing the face of a dead 10 year old boy who had lost both of his arms was not the same for him as it would have been for a civilian back home. They would see a poor, defenseless boy blown to smithereens. A life wasted. Innocent killing. He saw a threat neutralized. If this individual was not face down dead in front of Mooney, he himself might be the one dead in the dirt with both arms blown off. It’s all a numbers game when you got down to it. You kill them or they kill you; and the likelihood of you dying greatly diminishes if they are already dead.

        The sergeant reached down, picked up the red piece of paper, and turned it over between his stubby fingers. Streaks of charcoal from his hands smeared black lines over it. Upon further examination, he realized the paper was folded once down the center. He looked at it hard for a few seconds and then unfolded the paper. He expected to find some sort of writing or photograph lodged inside, but he found nothing. He refolded the paper along the pre-established creases, and this action concurrently triggered a memory in the deepest reaches of his mind. Grade school. Classroom. Dark mahogany desk. History book. Trail of Tears. Andrew Jackson. Boredom. Piece of paper. Folding of paper. He gazed at the piece of paper with a new understanding. Licking his dry, cracked lips, he began to fold the paper. His fingers moved slowly as they created clean, new creases in the red piece of paper. A light shone in Mooney’s eyes, but one could not tell if it was from the reflection of the red paper or from something else, unseen. Naked to the eye and only noticeable in the meek freshness of dawn or the rolling expanse of dusk.

        After a stint of folding, a small paper plane sat delicately in the palm of Staff Sergeant Mooney’s hand. He brought the plane up to his ear, as if to listen to its small engine rumble to a start, and then he shot his hand forward, releasing the paper plane from his grasp. The plane shot in a straight line away from him, curved to the left a bit, and then started to lose altitude. On its descent, the plane looped lazily once, twice, and after the third loop began to nose dive. It flew towards the ground and eventually lodged itself in the open chest wound of a soldier with no face. Mooney smiled.