Running From the Memories
It was July 4, 1948 and for the sake of his sanity, he needed to be alone. With a bottle of beer, a cigarette, a pretty girl. He didn't care. "Snafu" Merriell Shelton just did not care. He'd been running from the memories for two long years and he was fucking tired of it. He just needed one day. A single day to himself. To think about everything that had happened so that when the next day rolled around he could just lock up all the horrors in the deepest, darkest crevices of his soul.
All of it was falling down on his shoulders as he sidled along the banks of the little river outside of town. The river where he'd taken his first girlfriend for a date. The river where he'd been pushed in by the bullies at school. The river that had always been so stable, so unbending. Now he realized it was always changing, always moving. Just like New Orleans had. Just like his mother and father and friends had. But he-he had changed. Irrevocably, irreparably. There was no going back for him. What had been done would stay with him for the rest of his life. Every Jap that he had shot down. Every innocent person that he had slaughtered without remorse. Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Okinawa. The fire and the screams and the terror. It was all ringing through his head as he relieved it for a second, agonizing time.
He had to wonder if he would ever forget it. He'd managed to push the memories to the back of his mind for the past two years. By drinking beer after beer and smoking cigarette after cigarette. By banging every broad he could get his hands on. But all of it left him feeling cold and more alone than he'd ever felt in his life. There was nothing left here for him. He felt broken and used up. Like he'd lived more than he could have ever imagined and more than his body and mind could take.
For what felt like the millionth time, he had to wonder what he'd done to deserve making it through that Hell. He had to ask: why me? That's what everyone asked themselves once they had settled back down into their old lives again.
Merriell didn't believe that he did deserve this. HE didn't deserve any of it. Not his mother's patience or his father's understanding. He didn't deserve the smiles and the salutes from the people of New Orleans when they realized that he'd been a Marine. He felt sickened by it-by all of it. The fact that he had made it and they hadn't made him shake uncontrollably with so many pent up emotions. Anger, fear, guilt. All of it crashed through his chest in a tidal wave that threatened to drown him with every fell swoop of its waters.
How could he go on? With the knowledge, with the memories, with the guilt? How could anyone ever expect him to be normal again?
Standing there, looking down on the waters of that flowing river, Snafu Shelton thought he might have seen the way. To redemption, to happiness. But when he turned his head for a better look, it was gone. A trick of the light and fate's cruel idea of a joke. He didn't think it was funny. In fact, he would have said that that was the stupidest fucking joke he'd ever heard of in his entire life.
I can't really describe how nervous I am right now as I post this. It's my first publication in this category and I can only hope that I've done justice both to Merriell Shelton and the other men who served in the Pacific Theater of war. I really hope I accomplished that and I hope that all of you enjoy this. Please review if you have the time. I'd really appreciate it. Just to see if I've gotten the character and the theme of the series under wraps. Thanks so much! :)
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the order of words which make up this story. I am in no way trying to disrespect Merriell Shelton or the Marines who fought and died in World War 2 in the Pacific.