Sometimes in the night, he swears he hears her giggle.
The ghastly sound rings in his ears, resonates throughout the now empty house. It sends shivers up his spine.
If he's lucky, sometimes he catches the glimpse of swaying silk, hears the rustles of a dress brushing against bare legs in the summer heat.
But when it turns colder, he thinks he hears the all too late warning cries of the doomed, smells the scent of sulphur and apple and grapes, all mixed into one, and then he sees the blindingly white flash of an explosion, the desert dust and sand flying through the air, and then he sees the stillness of bodies that only death can bring about. It is always silent when he sees this.
He always wakes to the agonizingly familiar sight of too white silk rushing past his door in a hurried manner, the tinkling of laughter that floats into his room.
When he goes to check, there is no-one there. The house is always empty these days, save for him and his memories.
At other times - mostly when it rains - he listens to the heavy stomp of a booted foot echoing throughout the house and into his heart. And it hurts.
He swears he can hear the sound of a sniper rifle going off, the shattering off glass and electronics alike, the soft thump of a lifeless body falling to the cold, hard ground.
He thinks he hears an all too familiar laugh that chills his heart; it leaves him even more cold and empty than when he visits America in winter and is looked upon as a stone-cold killer.
And he can swear on his life that he hears the low, groaning creak of weight shifting against old wooden steps, hears the sharp crack! of a handgun going off in an enclosed space, hears a frighteningly familiar grunt, hears the thump of yet another falling body, and then it is quiet except for the low, heartbroken singing of the last of his children.
Often, he has to close his eyes against the onslaught of nameless, screaming faces flashing through his mind when he enters the house. He cannot bear to see all that pain and fear and horror on their faces in the house that is supposed to be his home, his safe place.
He no longer has a safe place, he ponders. He has destroyed them all in a fruitless attempt at what, exactly? Revenge? Anger? Hatred? Love?
He has destroyed his safest places - even those in his memories - all in the name of his country.
He can barely remember a time when there was no pain in his life. He remembers when his wife left him, when his youngest daughter died, when his son betrayed him, when he gave his eldest daughter up for dead, when his eldest daughter rejected him. He just doesn't remember the happy times.
Perhaps there were none.
He thinks to himself, in the dead of night, when all but the soldiers are sleeping, that perhaps it is a good thing he no longer has anyone to grieve for, to grieve with.
Perhaps this is how it should have been done all along.
Sometimes in the night, he swears he hears her giggle.
In the morning, he makes sure to wipe it from his mind. Clean slate, clean mind, clean soul.
He must be sure to ignore the ghosts at play in his mind when he goes to work, for his officers cannot - must not - see the slow crumbling of his mind.
Eli David is not mad, and he will see to it that no-one thinks he is.
This just popped into my head at night, y'know?