The Minefield

Two soldiers walked through the morning meadow, unaware they had entered a minefield.

One was a protégé, carrying the map; the other was the major. They were tasked with carrying supplies between two infantry units.

The major felt quite complacent that day. The sky was blue, the air warm on his face as they walked through the meadow. He spent the time talking about his siblings and friends, and the fields back home, how the paddy fields danced in the wind in August. The ground was sodden yet leaf-covered, autumn’s leaves collecting beneath their boots.

The major got carried away telling the protégé things from days gone by. Much like any old sport, he liked to reminisce once in a while and if the protégé had anything to add, he never got the chance.

They walked over twigs, dried leaves, and old trunks gone soft with moss. It rained near every day in that country, so a body couldn’t help but feel a little blessed, walking through actual sunlight for once. And when the birds got to singing and the crickets got to fiddling, a man naturally feels the urge to talk, whether or not he’s got anything worth saying. The major surely felt it. The protégé, checking his map, did not.

Then it happened.

A clang, loud and wrong, shot across the meadow. Iron on iron, like a plough striking a buried rock. The protégé had stepped on something that they had both, over the course of their service, learned to fear.

And yet … nothing.

The protégé had stepped on a mine. A dud mine. Thank God.

They sank to the autumn leaves, gasping and shaking, grateful to be alive. Death had let them slip through its fingers once more.

They decided not to talk about this, and they did not. They found a different route, walking carefully to the infantry unit. No word was said the whole way. The weight of almost-death clung to them like winter fog.

But I, of course, know what actually happened that fateful day. I know that, beneath the relief of having survived, each of them had come to a different realization. Neither spoke of it, keeping their epiphanies tucked tight against their chests, carrying their quiet guilt as they put one foot in front of the other. They both got to learn something that day.

The major learned that he shouldn’t have been so careless. He could have cost himself his life, his protégé’s, and all the others who depended on them.

The protégé learned that he had been holding the map upside down.