28-0987 | Va Form

The form sat on the kitchen table like a summons. Two pages, dense with government-issue paragraphs and blank spaces waiting to be filled with the ruins of a life.

Leo Masterson stared at the number: VA Form 28-0987. His left hand, the one still whole, traced the scarred ridge of his right wrist. He hadn’t filled out a form this important since his enlistment. Back then, the questions had been about loyalty and medical history. Now, they asked about stairs, bathrooms, and the ability to boil water. va form 28-0987

Leo closed his eyes. He saw the garage. The concrete step he tripped over every time. The narrow door his wheelchair couldn’t fit through. The sink he couldn’t reach. The form sat on the kitchen table like a summons

He snatched a pen with his good hand. His handwriting was jagged, a betrayer of the tremors that now owned his right arm. He wrote: His left hand, the one still whole, traced

Leo’s jaw tightened. “I don’t have goals. I have a list of humiliations.”

When he finished, he signed the bottom. His signature was a shaky scrawl, nothing like the bold Leo Masterson, SGT he’d once used on deployment orders.

I cannot button a shirt. I cannot cut a carrot. I drop my coffee every third morning. I have not showered without a plastic chair in 611 days.