# Rust and Ashes

The alarm went off at six. Tom turned it off. He turned it on again. He turned it off again. Outside the window was a gray sky and a gray building and a gray street. It was the kind of morning that made a man want to stay in bed and drink whiskey until noon.

Tom got up anyway.

His head was pounding. His hands were shaking. The bottle was empty. He had been drinking since midnight, or maybe since the night before. He could not remember. He could not remember much of anything anymore.

He went to the kitchen and made coffee. Black. No sugar. He drank it standing up, looking out the window at the street below. A man was walking a dog. A woman was carrying groceries. A car drove by with the radio playing. Normal things. Normal people. Normal life.

Tom did not feel normal.

He had been normal once. He had been a medic in the National Guard. He had deployed to Iraq twice. He had seen things that he could not unsee, done things that he could not undo. He had come home with a body that ached and a mind that broke and a life that fell apart.

The explosion had been in Fallujah. An IED, hidden under the road, waiting for a vehicle to drive over it. Tom had been in the vehicle next to the one that blew up. He had been thrown clear. He had been found by locals who had no idea what he was, where he came from, or why he was wearing a uniform that meant nothing to them. They had taken him to a clinic, a real clinic with real doctors and real medicine, and they had stitched him up and told him to go home.

He had gone home. To Youngstown, Ohio. To a city that had been dead long before he left for Iraq. To an apartment that smelled of mildew and regret. To a life that made no sense.

He went to work at the scrap yard. The owner, a man named Mike O'Connor, paid him minimum wage and treated him like garbage. Tom did not care. He needed the money. He needed anything that kept him busy, that kept him from thinking, that kept him from remembering.

Today, the work was the same as yesterday. Sort metal. Load trucks. Drive the forklift. Mike yelled at him for something Tom did not understand. Tom did not respond. He just kept working.

At lunch, his ex-wife Sarah came to the yard. She was holding the hand of their seven-year-old son, a boy who looked at Tom with eyes that were too old for his face. Tom felt something shift inside him, a door opening onto a room he had locked long ago.

Hey, Sarah said. Not unkindly. Not kindly. Just...hey.

Hey.

How are you?

Fine.

She looked at him for a long moment. He looked at the ground. The boy looked at Tom with those too-old eyes.

We're fine, Sarah said. We're doing okay.

Tom wanted to say something. He wanted to say I'm sorry. I'm trying. I love you. But the words would not come. They were stuck somewhere in his throat, behind the whiskey and the pain and the silence.

I'm fine, he said instead.

She nodded. She did not believe him. Nobody believed him.

After she left, Tom went back to work. He worked until five. He went to a bar. He drank until midnight. He went home. He slept. He woke up. The alarm went off at six. He turned it off. He turned it on again. He turned it off again.

Outside the window was a gray sky and a gray building and a gray street.

October 12, 2008

An old man across the hall had a heart attack. Tom heard him screaming. He ran across the hall and kicked open the door and found the man on the floor, blue in the face, clutching his chest.

Tom knew what to do. He had learned this in Iraq. He had used it in Iraq. He had saved lives in Iraq.

He put the man on his back. He started CPR. He counted the compressions. Thirty compressions. Two breaths. Thirty compressions. Two breaths. He did not stop. He did not care that his arms were shaking. He did not care that his hands were sweating. He did not care that the man was not getting better.

The man died.

Tom sat on the floor and stared at the body and felt nothing. Not grief. Not anger. Not sorrow. Nothing. Just a vast and hollow silence, the kind that comes when a man has seen too much and carried too much and has finally, finally run out of things to feel.

He went home. He drank. He slept. He woke up. The alarm went off at six. He turned it off. He turned it on again. He turned it off again.

Outside the window was a gray sky and a gray building and a gray street.

November 3, 2008

Tom met a man at the bar. The man was named Dave. Dave had been in the Army too. Dave had been in Afghanistan. Dave had lost a leg. Dave drank whiskey and talked about the war and talked about the war and talked about the war until the bar closed and they walked home together in the rain, neither of them speaking, both of them thinking the same thing: this is all there is.

Tom went home. He drank. He slept. He woke up. The alarm went off at six. He turned it off. He turned it on again. He turned it off again.

Outside the window was a gray sky and a gray building and a gray street.

December 24, 2008

Christmas Eve. Tom sat in his apartment and stared at the wall. The radio was playing. Someone was singing about snow and sleigh bells and a white Christmas. Tom did not believe in white Christmases. He believed in gray ones. Gray skies. Gray buildings. Gray streets. Gray lives.

He thought about Iraq. He thought about the explosion. He thought about the man he had been before the explosion and the man he was after. They were not the same man. They were not even the same species. One man had believed in things. The other man believed in nothing.

He thought about Sarah. He thought about the boy. He thought about the look in the boy's eyes. Too old. Too sad. Too knowing.

He thought about the old man across the hall. He thought about how he had tried to save him and failed. He thought about how he failed at everything. At work. At relationships. At life.

He thought about Dave. He thought about the leg. He thought about the war. He thought about the whiskey.

He thought about nothing.

The alarm went off at six. Tom turned it off. He turned it on again. He turned it off again.

Outside the window was a gray sky and a gray building and a gray street.

Today, he might not find work. Tomorrow, he might not find work. The day after that, he might not find work. But he would go out anyway. He would keep going. Because that is what you do. You keep going. Even when there is no point. Even when there is no hope. Even when there is nothing.

He opened the door. He stepped outside. The air was cold. The sky was gray. The street was empty.

He walked.

© 2026 - Authored by Z R ZHANG ( EL9507135 -- パスポート番号[ちゅうごく] 중국 여권 번호 Номер паспорта หมายเลขหนังสือเดินทาง Passnummer رقم جواز السفر CHN Passport)

The aforementioned Author hereby grants to OXFORD INDUSTRIAL HOLDING GROUP (ASIA PACIFIC) CO., LIMITED （BRN74685111） all economic property rights, including but not limited to the rights of: reproduction, distribution, rental, exhibition, performance, communication to the public via information network, adaptation, compilation, commercial operation, authorization for third-party use, and rights enforcement.

Such grant is exclusive and irrevocable. The term of such rights shall be 49 years from the date of publication.

To contact author， please email to datatorent@yeah.net