The Whispered Dream
"...And still you whisper of the war, and find
Sour jokes for all those horrors left behind."
-Siegfried Sassoon, "A Whispered Tale"
I still have those dreams. Every night, I wake up screaming with pain, screaming that I should have been the one to be killed, rather than to kill with my words.
I scream, "Take me instead, God! Take me!"
And it is only at night that I believe in God, because how could He have done such a thing to me?
Every night, the dreams get better. A little better. Every night, there is less blood in the puddle where he lays – even though there was no blood at all.
At night, death seems like it would be a miracle, the only way I could possibly start over. People stare at me because of my red hair and although they hail me as a converted war hero, I know myself for what I am: a murderer. Death seems like a dream – a world that holds no nightmares.
I see flashes of green light; hear the sinister, ever-calling shouts from friends and comrades, enemies and those unknown. They were all unknown. I hear the crash of rubble that meant the world was falling down around me and nothing would ever be the same again. I hear the moaning screams, every night, as their blood drains to the ground, to their deaths.
I rock myself back to sleep. The white sheets seem so foreboding. I switch to black. The black reminds me of death, the very thing I've been trying to escape from. I try every color but red.
Because red is the color of that pool of nonexistent blood, the last thing I see before I wake from my restless sleep.
It will be a long time before the nightmares stop coming. A long time before I do not see my brother, a part of my soul, so broken and damaged and listlessly crying for hope, lying there with the happiest look on his face as he dies with a laugh and a smile great enough to light the night sky.
And I lay there because I am sorry that I did nothing sooner but what could be done when I knew nothing was wrong? What could be done that would protect me? And yet too late I realized that hard as I might protect myself I will never protect the clan of redheads that means most to me. And now I, I am the cause of my brother's death and he will never laugh again. He will never tell me that I am a git. And ever time I hear that little voice in the back of my head I wonder why it must be me. But it is my punishment.
No one except myself may blame me, but it is my punishment.
So we go and I lay there until Ron pulls me. Ron, my little brother who broke my glasses and tugged on Ginny's tiny pigtails and bravely ignored Fred and George – Fred, Fred, Fred – for as long as he could. He is the strong one now, while I –
I am reduced to nothing.
Fred, Fred, Fred, Fred, Fred...
But it is no use escaping the dream now, because I know what the words are.
"Fred!"
And then I wake up, and the moon shines in patterns over the tiled floor, the black sheets suffocating me, and I hear myself screaming.
Every night I know I am the real cause of my brother's death. So in some ways it doesn't matter if my wife leans in the doorway and bites her lip and tears streak down her cheeks because she knows that I scream in my sleep.
Every night, it matters no longer that my daughters – one blonde and a bookworm, one red-headed and an impressive prankster – lie sound asleep in their beds because I have soundproofed their walls. It matters no longer that my Molly-Butterfly and my Lucy-Ladybird do not know that I distracted their Uncle Fred from fighting and that is the reason why he is dead. It no longer matters because they cannot distract me from this burden: I will forever be to blame.
Every night, Audrey looks at me like she has run out of options and she doesn't know what to do.
Every night, Audrey climbs back in bed and I kiss her and there's something called passion there but there's just as much loss as there is passion, so I break off the kiss and roll over.
Every night, when Audrey is asleep and her white-blond hair fans out over the pillow, I slip off her glasses and set them next to the bed. I stroke her beautiful hair and her cheek and wonder how I am stuck in this nightmare and she is still here with innocence.
Every night, I wonder how much longer she will have her innocence. Will I have caused its loss?
Every night, I wonder how much longer this can last.
Every night this happens.
Every night I wake up and scream, "Why me, God? Why me?"