Zero

I hadn't expected to come home this way. It’s hard to believe that two days ago I was in temperatures of 25° and more, drinking tepid water from a canteen, my body being whipped and scratched by sand carried on the harsh winds of the desert. My skin still carries the tan of the summer months as I set foot on the wet English pavement for the first time in over a year.

For 14 months, I shared everything with a group of 20 men and boys. There were 30 of us at the beginning. Some left of their own accord, wounded by shrapnel or stray bullets or enemy fire. Some left as ordered by the army; still enlisted but relegated to a desk job, their wounds too severe to allow them back to the front lines but their knowledge of the brutal, bloody conflict limited to the years they fought, making them choose to stay in the world we all know. And three... three of the brothers in our forces family had returned in body bags.

Those three men, barely more than boys to me, had been caught in hostile fire. Not one of the three had, at the time of the attack, reached their 30th birthday—young men still in their prime. They should have been safe, on a break from their duties in Basra.

They should have been safe.

Rockets hit the base: relentless, pounding impacts that kicked up the dust and rattled the earth. The squadron felt their deaths like a wound; the pain choking us like the oppressive heat of the sand. For days, we were more scared of the breaks than of the time when we were fighting.

At least fighting gave us a chance.

I was lucky to not be one of those wounded during the first part of our tour. I was one of the few servicemen granted leave at Christmas. Two weeks away from the fray—a much-needed reprieve.

England was just as I remembered it. I had left behind a country of bright golden yellows, of oranges that burn the sky, of colours so bright they hurt a man's eyes.

Yet here I was, returned to this: grey skies, grey buildings, grey roads, a million shades and all of them grey. Even the people seem grey here, their charcoal suits, their pale skin, their personalities even maintain the grey. Here, everything is grey…

I never thought I would miss conflict, miss watching the backs of other men, miss the noise and the sweat and the smells. But I do: I miss the vibrant realness of that world I've left behind. Here, the rain soaks through my fuzzy head, leaving tracks on my skin, washing away the colour of Iraq, replacing it with grey. My skin breathes a sigh of relief as the rain washes the sand and grime from my skin, a silent reminder that there was no time to shower before I left. I, perhaps strangely, feel no relief as I take a deep breath, the cold wet air feeling heavy and uncomfortable in my lungs.

We deployed in October. The air had been crisp and bracing, but nothing like this. The trees had painted the usual grey with red and gold and orange, a mixture of beauty and a strange sort of uncomfortable ugliness. For that much grey to be broken up so starkly it always made me think that someone's child had tried to brighten up the place–i. It never flowed properly for me.

And now it's December, the trees are bare, those vulgar splashes of colour long gone, and my world is back to grey. I wait for a break in the foot traffic of these city streets, make my way to the home of an old friend. I have no real family left to speak of, a few cousins scattered around the country, but nothing more. That's why I had enlisted in the RAF, older than many of those who joined at the same time. I was an only child; some would say a lonely child, and my parents had been older when they had had me.

I’d held several jobs from the age of sixteen, the usual retail work on the weekends as I finished full-time schooling. Then, instead of following my friends to colleges and universities and travelling, I had moved into full-time security work, eighteen years old and supporting a retired mother and a father who had worked all his life and desperately wanted to slow down.

I was 23 when my Dad died. It was a day just like this; wet, cold, grey, too noisy with the rush of sounds around me as I worked an event. Ask me now what the event was and I couldn't even tell you where it was. I remember my ear piece popping into life as one coordinator told me I had an incoming call. I remember making my way to the office. And then I remember my world collapsing. The hospital had called my Mum, told her that he had collapsed on the train to work.

I felt the blood drain from my face as I became shaky, the noises around me turning to a deafening roar of white noise; I faintly recall telling her I'd be there as quickly as I could. We hadn't even known he was ill, hadn't known that morning that our last words to him would be as inane as "Have a good day." It should have been "I love you." The last words we say should always be "I love you."

His aneurysm—this lurking, insidious timebomb in his head—had burst.

My father, my inspiration, was gone.

The world lost a little more colour that day. Dad had been such a big personality, such a remarkable person; making up for his quiet, unassuming manner in the workplace with jokes and laughter and singing at home—he’d been this wonderfully positive role model for so many of my friends.

I threw myself into work, took no time to grieve. I didn't have time; I had to work harder now that I was the sole breadwinner at home. I worked 12 hour days, 5 day weeks. With the exhaustion that crept in, my senses dulled, my eyelids were often heavy, my head not always focussed on work. I acted almost entirely on impulse and instinct, bent rules to almost breaking point on numerous occasions, got written up for reckless behaviour.

It didn't matter what the job was, who I was guarding, where the job was. If it made money, I didn't care about anything else. I didn't spend my spare time at home either. The house was so quiet now; I didn't want to be around the memories of what it had once been. I was always at the gym, becoming bigger, stronger, convinced it meant I was healthier and wouldn't have the same problems Dad had.

For two years, I ran myself into the ground, constantly working. With every paycheck that came in, I handed my mother the money she needed for rent and food and then disappearing for another few hours. I barely slept and, when I did, it was rarely at home and rarely alone.

Maybe if I had been more careful and spent more time with Mum then I would have noticed that she was grieving, noticed that she was working again so that she wouldn't be alone. It was only three days a week, but she worked in a charity shop, she made new friends, squirrelled away a little money for a rainy day. If only I hadn't ignored her, maybe I would have told her to be careful, told her to make sure someone else did the heavy lifting, and told her not to climb ladders alone.

Maybe if I had warned her she wouldn't have fallen off the ladder that day, two and a half years after my father died, maybe she wouldn't have landed badly, maybe she wouldn't have broken her hip and wrist. Another phone call at work: Mum in hospital, she'll live but she will need help, get her a carer, be her carer...

Shaking my head, the grey memories fade away to bring back the grey present. I shouldn't get to thinking. It makes it harder to be back here. Remembering watching Mum just give up, watching her be defeated, watching the illness in her mind eat away at her until there was nothing left of the mother I once knew.

It began with the fall, continued with the Alzheimer's and dementia, and finally ended with Cancer. Eight years and three days after my father had died suddenly, my mother finally wasted away to nothing. It was slow, painful, agonising...but I got to say goodbye. I never know which is worse. A quick death that leaves regret at not saying goodbye or a slow death that leaves regret at losing the person to the point that they don't care if you say goodbye or not because they don't know who you are...

The house, of course, passed to me. And I used it in that same numbed, reckless manner of those years: I quit my job and simply sat and drank until the money ran out. Then I worked for a few days on "high risk" assignments, took the pay cheque and drank again. I lost touch with all but one of my friends, didn't care as I spent my time alone anyway.

One night, I passed out drunk, seemingly more alcohol in my veins than blood. It was his greatest concern that I would kill myself through drinking and he used to text me every morning at 7am. That day, I didn't answer. I didn't answer when he called me at 8 am. Or when he knocked on the door at 9am. Or when he called my name at ten past 9. Or when he shook me at 9:20, having used his spare key to get into the house and finding my body slumped in Dad's old chair.

I didn't respond at all until 9:35 when he had dragged me bodily to the downstairs wet room we’d had installed when mom was dying and turned the water to icy cold, high pressure, hitting my still-clothed skin and causing me to gasp in near-pain.

He poured every trace of alcohol down the sink. He helped me get sober, and I moved in with him as I sold the house, auctioned off the furniture online, kept only the bare minimum of trinkets and sentimental pieces as a form of morbid memorabilia. I spent six months getting back in shape and remembering my old healthier ways and then, at the age of 33, I joined the Royal Air Force and began rigorous training under a leader only 4 years my senior, surrounded by men and women young enough to be my own sons and daughters.

We got the call up within three months of finishing basic training. We weren't fearless by any stretch of the imagination. We knew the risks and we knew some of us wouldn't make it home.

But this is what we had signed up for and so, twenty-six men and women rolled out of the grey miserable mists of England and into the blazing colours of Iraq. The sun burned, and it took us days to get accustomed to seeing everything in glorious technicolour. Even ravaged by bombs, destroyed by both enemy and friendly fire, torn apart by war, Iraq was, and still is, a beautiful place.

But now I'm here, this place I call home and the brightness has gone. The heavy air, the grey and miserable oppression are felt more keenly for having been away. I turn my eyes heavenwards, praying for the strength to finish my travel from the airport to my friend's apartment. Although I am used to the amount of movement required on a daily basis, my whole body feels heavy with fatigue, the aches and pains I am so used to hiding or ignoring now at the forefront of my mind.

The scar on my left side seems to throb and the muscles in my leg spasm until my movements become shaky, disjointed, jerky. I know I need to sit down; I know I need to find a bench, a wall, anything.

All this is just a reminder of why I am back here. A bullet wound in my side, they patched me up just fine. Unknown to us at the time, the bullet had caused nerve damage, I was fractionally slower than...well, than I had needed to when the bomb went off. I was away from the impact point, but not far enough away that I was safe.

Anything carried by an exploisive blast can be shrapnel, even the unlikeliest of things.Did you know that anything can be classified as shrapnel? If it occurs when a bomb goes off, anything can be shrapnel. Even, i In my case, half a car door and a windscreen wiper blade. The windscreen wiper punctured a hole through the my leg, leaving me impaled and unable to move as the car door whipped past and sliced a tendon in my thigh.

I was stitched back together well enough, but my army career was over. I received a commendation and an honourable discharge. They had offered me a job pushing papers, but that wasn't me. I couldn't be the one to type out fifteen letters a week explaining why another man's son, another woman's daughter, would not be coming home.

My leg stopped cramping and I stood, uncharacteristically stumbling as the leg was unready to take my weight. A hand shot out and held me upright, firm and strong. I looked down, my vision slightly blurred by the haze of pain and embarrassment.

Blue. Why on Earth were the nails on the hand that held my arm blue? I blinked twice and more colour came into view: gold rings with a multitude of coloured stones, purple sleeves with lurid pink swirls, gold chains, piercingly green eyes and hair the colour of the sands of Iraq.

Looking at her in that moment felt like coming home. In a world of grey, somehow I had found my rainbow.

She smiled at me, her eyes sparkling; I sucked in a breath, felt it burning my lungs in a way that was less intense than pain but more intense than pleasure. I could swear at that moment, in spite of the mist that smothered us with its grey shroud, the sun came out; the birds sang and the world became more. She became, in that one silent moment, my Spring in a world of eternal Winter.

I whispered my thanks and, for a moment of madness, considered kissing her to see if she tasted as delicious as she looked. I only noticed I was staring at her lips when I watched them move and had absolutely no idea what she had said. I shook my head slightly, determined to listen to her words and stop the pounding in my ears.

I apologised, my voice cracking slightly as I attempted to smile while talking to her, something I hadn't done properly in several months.

"You shouldn't expect your wounds to heal so quickly. Take time, strength will return." Her voice was nothing like I had expected, though what I had expected I'm not entirely sure; probably the sound of an angel's chorus with the way my head was echoing. I think, perhaps due to the look of sincere and honest innocence, I was expecting a much younger voice.

Hers was the voice of wisdom that comes only from age or experience. The colours of her clothes seemed to glow and shimmer and glide across her skin in an exotic kaleidoscope that brought to mind the strange and alluring image of her dancing like the Ghawazi dancers of the stories of my childhood. My breath hitched as I looked into her face, her eyes shining as if she had seen the image in my mind and found them amusing.

It took me a few moments to realise that she hadn't actually seen what was in my mind and my breath left me in a long harsh whoosh as I stepped heavily on my damaged leg and I felt the pain shoot up my side unbearably. I grimaced as it throbbed, desperately trying to hold on to my sanity and focus on anything but the beautiful woman in front of me. Never had the pain been as welcome a distraction as when she put her hand on my chest and pursed her lips, ready for a kiss. Her perfume assailed my nostrils, and I wondered if she tasted as sweet as she smelled.

Or at least, I had meant my musings to be silent. The look of surprise that flickered in her eyes made me realise that I had, embarrassingly, murmured the words aloud. I closed my eyes, ready to leave before I made a huge fool of myself and said something more regrettable. The tender touch of her lips to mine shocked my eyes into opening and her lids lowered over the piercing green eyes as the kiss held, our lips tracing, touching, clinging as she pulled away slowly and broke me out of my reverie.

She slid her fingers around my wrist, murmuring that she had something that could soothe my pains. She led me towards a small shop that I could almost swear hadn't been there before I shipped out.

The outside, painted an unassuming copper-brown, appeared to mock the cacophony of colours of the interior. The woman, who still had not introduced herself, had me in thrall, convinced that this colourful grotto of natural medicines could do something that no amount of pills and surgeons and operations had; this shop, with its vibrant owner, was going to heal me of all my ailments.

She stopped and smiled, letting go of my hand; I felt some of the warmth seep out of my body, my hands bereft of her touch. My eyes watched her every move as she flitted about, as graceful a woman as I had ever seen. She seemed to dance, glide, float on some unseen wings, an angel in disguise. She picked bottles up from the shelves, a rainbow of pastes and pills and potions all lined up on the counter. She hummed softly under her breath as she moved towards the back of the shop, gesturing as she pulled aside a brightly beaded curtain over the doorway of what I had assumed was an office.

I walked towards her and saw that a massage table took up the majority of the small room, its black leather top stark against the muted prism of blues and greens that were obviously designed to calm the people in the room. It was still beautifully bold, but somehow the colours swirled together in such intricate patterns that both calmed and excited me. It was a strange feeling. I felt I could fall asleep in moments or run 10 miles with a 50 kg backpack through sweltering heat.

She slipped past me as I moved to sit on the edge of the table, reluctant to make any assumptions as she rummaged through the collection of bottles and jars and incense sticks. She came back to me and laughed slightly.

"And how exactly am I supposed to help you with your clothes on?" Her voice rang out, impossibly loud in the tiny room, echoing through me like thunder in a storm as she made her way to the rickety looking antique table in the corner of the room, depositing the jars with a series of tinkling notes that sounded almost melodious. She kept her back turned and I was overcome with an unusual sense of propriety that bordered on shyness. I fumbled and cursed, realising I had left my boots on before stripping down. I heard her giggle slightly as I bent down to unlace my boots, black standard issue heavy army boots that were tied so tight that they felt like a part of me. I heard the smile in her voice as she murmured "everything but the underwear, soldier boy."

I stripped off swiftly and got back onto the edge of the massage table. She began to light several incense sticks, purples and blues and browns and blacks, all sending the first coil of smoke into the air. I sat awkwardly, the muscle in my leg noticeably twitching with fatigue. As the woman turned, she motioned for me to lie down; her hands soft and cool as she placed them on my thigh, tracing the scars on my skin with a slight furrow between her brow as she stared.

I closed my eyes, that disorienting feeling of exhaustion and hypervigilance making it difficult to relax. I tried to slow my heartbeat with deep, slow breaths breaths, which pulled the heavy scent of the burning incense into my lungs. I couldn’t tell if it was her touch or the smoke that fed my euphoric, almost giddy lightheadedness.

Her strokes returned to my thigh, now coated with something sticky that smelled faintly sweet, like high-quality honey but warm, warmer than her hands. The exquisite mixture of heat and cold heightened my reaction to her. The blood pooled in my stomach and I felt light-headed. At the first spikes of sharp pain, my eyes snapped open, my head lifting to look at her. She smiled as she dipped a small slim acupuncture needle into a silvery-grey liquid, taking care to methodically puncture my skin around my scars.

My skin tingled and burned, flushed hot at the insistent press of her fingers against my scar. Her teasing touches, the tiny prickle of the drops of liquid, cold and burning. I lay back, closed my eyes and felt myself drift off into a dream-filled world of rainbows and kaleidoscopes.

My dreams were twisted, rainbows and gold and fire and pain and ice and snow and burning, faces of people long since gone, people lost and people who were only vaguely ever known, faces screaming into the darkness, faces contorted in pain, scarred and tortured. They screamed messages at me, words and phrases in both English and Arabic, words that made no sense, messages of witchcraft and poisoning and death and pain and... and grey.

I opened my eyes after what seemed like minutes, but may have been closer to hours. I flexed my toes and realised they were still bare. They touched something wet and I sat bolt upright, a sharp pain throbbing through my head, like a come down from a drug-induced high. My chest felt tight as I took in a shuddering breath. The cold air assaulted my chest and I felt unbearable pains shoot through my whole body.

My leg was numb and I felt the numbness seeping through my whole body. The girl was gone, her shop gone, the city a dark shape at the periphery of my vision. The colours were gone. Once again, the grey and cold surrounded me. My boots were missing, my trousers back in position. I tried to push myself up but couldn't get any weight into my legs. I looked down at my chest and noticed silvery-grey marks snaking up from the waistband of my trousers. The grey lines branched out, spreading over my body and making my limbs heavy and near unusable.

A memory of my chemistry classes at school flashed through my mind. The only metal that is liquid at room temperature: mercury.

Poisonous to humans.

Funny how something as insignificant and unimportant as grey can do so much harm.