Articles of War by Nick Arvin

When Heck asked, Quentin said he was writing to his fiancée. He wrote on a steel clipboard that he had somehow begged or bartered out of the hospital, and whenever someone loomed near enough to read what he was writing, Quentin hunched over the clipboard and shielded the page with his hands. When someone tried to tease him about writing dirty to his girl, Quentin ignored it. He had a way of greeting people by looking away while smiling tentatively that reminded Heck of his own father.
    Quentin seemed to have decided to regard Heck as a sort of fellow conspirator. Heck had taken the music box out to look at it for a moment before going to sleep when Quentin leaned over and asked, “Is it your mother’s?” Heck shook his head. Quentin wavered, then leaned nearer. “There is a girl? You’re in love?” Heck started. Quentin grinned. “Yeah?”
    They were quiet a minute.
    â€œI’ve lost her,” Heck said. “I don’t know where she is.”
    â€œYou have to find her.”
    â€œI don’t know where. I don’t even know where to look.”
    â€œWhat’s important is to search.” Quentin spoke with a rapid, hissing insistence that alarmed Heck. “You’ll find her.”
    â€œI hardly know her.” Heck put the music box away. “We don’t even speak the same language. Her father is insane.”
    â€œWell, perhaps you’re not in love.”
    Heck stared at his feet.
    â€œAre you in love?”
    Heck said nothing.
    This seemed to give Quentin new confidence. He said happily, “Confused is a part of love. The confusion isn’t important. What’s important is what you do. If you search, it’s love. If you don’t search, it’s not love. You’re going to search?”
    Suddenly Heck despised Quentin. “No,” Heck said without looking around. “No. There’s nowhere to search.” But after a minute the bitter emotion was already fading, and he longed to take the music box out again.
    The next day he began to try to write a letter to his father. But it all seemed so embarrassing—his foolish injury, this useless waiting. It seemed that from any words he wrote, any words at all, shame would ooze like blood from razor-cut flesh. He rolled over toward Quentin. “Hey.”
    Quentin was finishing his day’s letter packet, folding it and wedging it into an envelope. “Yes?” he said, without looking up.
    â€œWhat should I write to my dad?”
    Quentin shrugged.
    â€œWell, what is all this that you write to your fiancée?”
    â€œI tell her how much I love her.”
    Heck wrote, “Dear Dad.” He stared at this a minute. He said, “Okay, but what else?”
    â€œThe weather, the food.”
    Heck couldn’t imagine that his father would care about these things. He wrote, “I’m doing all right. Little action.” After a moment he added a bald lie: “But they keep me busy.” He capped his pen and set it aside. To Quentin he said, “Do you have a picture of her?”
    â€œA picture?”
    â€œSure.”
    Quentin looked away and did not answer. He sealed his envelope and put it into a canvas rucksack under his cot. Heck watched him a moment, then frowned and lay back.
    An hour passed and several of the men were already asleep when Quentin leaned over and whispered, “Heck.”
    Heck rolled to look at him. Quentin’s Adam’s apple dipped as he swallowed. The soft blue veins at his temples pulsed. Heck tried to picture Quentin fighting a war, killing men. It was not an impossible image, but it was awkward—it could be constructed only as collage, its parts in disproportion to one another. Quentin said, “She doesn’t exist.”
    â€œShe’s not your fiancée?”
    â€œShe doesn’t exist at all. I wish she did. I wish she did so bad that I can see her, I can hear how she talks, I know what