No, there's no nail, I told myself. It only feels like a nail. First, I couldn't remember the word, and then I thought a nail was stuck in my head. Was I crazy? Was this a nuthouse, a canvas loony bin out in the desert? There was no nail, I knew that. I was a little mixed up, I figured, could happen to anyone, nothing to worry about.

My head hurt. I wanted to call out, to ask for a doctor, but I couldn't. I was sure the sound of my own voice would split my skull wide open. I couldn't lift my head but I could turn it. Moving produced a feeling like broken glass behind my eyeballs, but I managed. I realized some of my pain came from noise. It had been one big jumble before, but now I could distinguish different sounds. Yells, groans, brakes screeching, metal doors slamming, all swirled around, dove into my head, and bounced around my brain, looking for a way out. At least I knew what one source of my pain was. Noise. It hurt.

Guys carrying stretchers came in, dressed in brown wool clothes and wearing helmets with red crosses on them. Wool, like the folded blanket my head rested on-hot, coarse, and itchy. It smelled like mothballs and road dust. I looked at my chest, then my legs. I wore khaki too, but light khaki. Everyone else wore a different… suit

… no, outfit-like what all the guys on a team wear.

What's that word? I wondered. Why is mine different?

"Sorry, buddy," a guy said as he knocked against my cot. I winced as the pain sent a jolt up my neck and into my skull, where it exploded into white-hot fragments. He and another fellow left a stretcher next to me.

"… 's OK," I croaked, glad that at least we spoke the same language. But he didn't hear me. I looked at the person on the stretcher, his clothes cut away, his chest torn to red ribbons.