Movie Trauma

They flocked to the clinic after Saving Private Ryan, grizzled veterans awash in fifty-year-old memories. One shuffled into my office chair, gaunt and haggard, wearing a bulky foot brace, his white hair curling beneath a ball cap with a 1st Marines patch. “What happened to your foot?” Great salty droplets began to stain his cheeks. “Shot at Guadalcanal. A round hit my sciatic nerve. One year in a cast, left with a permanent foot drop. Never a day without pain since.” He swiped at the tears with one knuckle and sniffed. The wound as raw as the day it happened.

This piece was published in the online literary magazine Five Minutes (https://www.fiveminutelit.com/movie-trauma)