Bits and Pieces

by Kathy Knudsen1

This will be an on-going piece of short stories with each chapter being a story unto itself, none more than about 5000 words. That way I won't be taking up so much space. While it says In Progress, each chapter will only be posted when complete

15. Chapter 15

SHELL SHOCK

Here I am, eighty-odd years old, and every once in a while I still wake up in the night feeling terrified. I still break out in a cold sweat. I still hear those cries of horror as Han and me race toward home and my feet feel weighted down somehow, like I'm running in slow motion and making no progress whatsoever.

And then my breath hitches and I open my eyes to a dark room with flecks of moonlight sneaking through the cracks of the curtains. I'm sitting in a bed, my bed. I know it was a dream, but I can still hear those screams filling the air all around me.

And I know no one's really there, but I can still feel them dying all around me. And I can't reach em. I can't save em. I can't even comfort them as they take their last struggled breath on this earth.

I struggle just to make myself breathe. I can feel the tears streaking down my cheeks, but I don't wipe em away. I let em flow, cause I know it's the only way I have to put those souls to rest, at least for the night. I know they'll be back to haunt me again.

The doctor calls it shell shock cause it happens to soldiers who bare witness to heinous things in war. He gave me pills he says will help keep those agonizing images at bay. But I don't take em. What right do I have to silence their screams or to fade their images from my memory. That would be like desecrating their graves or telling them they ain't worthy of my memory. I couldn't do that.

But they come to me more often now that I'm getting on in years and some night I'm afraid to go to sleep cause I know they're out there waiting for me to let my guard down, to surrender to that world of sleep that I can't control.

Some nights I call out to them so loud that Heyes hears me from the next room and he'll come rushing in and he'll sit on the bed and scoop my head and shoulders into his arms and just rock me in his arms, uttering calming sounds but no words, just like he done so many nights when we was boys. When he does that, I can hear the beat of his heart in my ear and I focus all my thoughts on that, the beating of his heart until all the terrorizing sounds and images are gone.

And it's just Heyes and me, like it's always been.

Just Heyes and me.