Chapter one..On a cold evening the wind whistled through the air,rain dropped likes bullets from a Gun.A man walked down the street looking pretty suspicious about that a car accident had happened in the street with no reaction he gave,not even a look.Until he looked to a old mansion that was all borded up with old decrepit wood.He gave a side eye as he walked away,but suddenly he was pulled by an invisible force?He darted to grab on to something that would keep from going inside the mansion

The sun lays on the horizon like a wounded soldier, bleeding into a puddle of red, painted amongst the sky like a warriors face paint.

The trees shake, reaching up like one’s limbs, weak from battle. The man sits beneath a willow, the tree bent forwards like a veteran, cane in hand.

The man sighs into his palm, wiping away the weary tiredness. He straightens his back and stands, his spine popping. One long scar lay down his cheek, stretching all the way to his shoulder. He winces, picking up his gun.

“Back to work,” says the soldier to himself, hefting the gun over his shoulder. He’s dressed in his suit, camouflaged into his surroundings. He heads for the woodline, his army-cut hair beneath a cap. Slowly, he settles into the damp ground beside a pine, propping his gun up on a rock.

“Enemy lines, southeast boarder, 2AK415, coming in with the tanks. Rig them up, let’s go, let’s go!” He remembers the words from his commander. He remembers standing in the field, the bloody horizon casting shadows across the plain battlefield. Scared to death but fighting for what was right. “Blow that bit up! GO!”

A man comes in front of the soldier behind the rock. The man fires four rounds into the small body, pumping him full of gunpowder and led. The soldier screams a battle cry, not stopping until the gun is done with its rounds.

When the boy falls to the ground, the soldier sees what he’s done. His son lays splayed, his blood spilt onto the dust of the day. Holes riddle his body, his chest heaves with a fighting breath as the dad runs over, dropping to his hands and knees.

“Son, son, I’m sorry- I… no, no-“

The boy reaches up for his dad’s hand. He’s only six, “It’s okay, daddy. I’m going to see momma now. I’ll go to heaven with her.”

The soldier screams, burying his head in the boy’s bloody chest as his lungs stop working and his eyes stop flitting in pain. His son’s breath stops, his brown eyes staring up at the bloody sky, his still-warm hand still wrapped around his father’s.

“I didn’t mean to,” screams the soldier, his face red. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Come back, please. Please.”

Slowly, the boy’s hand falls from the soldier’s, limp with death. The man picks it up and squeezes it, waiting for a response. When there is none, the man falls back, reaching for his gun. He skitters to add another bullet. Hyperventilating as he puts the barrel of the gun in his mouth.

And swallows a bullet for his son.

Painful screaming Scattered corpses Heartless shooting

Out of all the scabs The broken bones The missing limbs

They are the ones that nobody sees They are the ones that are nearly invisible But the guilt they bare is unimaginable

They keep me awake They are eating away at my sanity Yet I could never share that burden

They break me They burn me Till I’m as bright as a star

Cries echoing torturing me There is no therapist that can mend This broken mind

I can’t pretend I’m fine, not anymore I’m sorry I know you need me But these scars are tearing me apart

And the only thing I can do to bring peace Is to say goodbye to them and to you For the final time

I knew of a soldier Who whistled in the dark. Who dealt us into games With his pair of playing cards.

I remember his smile When his wife sent him a letter. When it came to her, The tough guy was a beggar.

He made airplanes with papers And shot them through the trench. He had a funny accent, I think that he was French.

I saw the gleam of passion, He carried through the day. And then I watched it die And dwindle all away.

His beard grew long and messy, His eyes were rimmed in red. His gun became his friend And then shot him through the head.

I knew of a soldier, The bravest there could be. And no one will remember What it took to set him free.

Hefting another load onto my shoulder, I trudged back into Uncle John’s store. It was honest work and I was lucky to have it, having finally come back stateside. Sweat dripped down my back, a tickling stream between my shoulder blades when I first heard it. That familiar droning that meant danger for far too long, that sound that threw a switch I no longer had control of. Incoming, Incoming, Incoming! I remember nothing after that until Uncle John and Mama’s repeated yelling finally cut through my blazing mind, my screams of terror. I came back into myself and found I was swinging around the bell pole in the side yard, like some crazed version of a children’s game. My screams faded slowly on my lips, their familiar voices that meant I was safe finally grounding me to the spot. “Jack, Jack, it’s over, you’re home! We’re here. Honey, you to get this sorted. You can’t live like this, you have a family that needs you whole, you gotta work through it,” Mama said. In my heart, I knew she was right. I trusted her love, her wisdom, her anchor. She was not my real mother, but my my stepmother. My mother, Minnie Pearl, had put me and my brothers, save one, on a train to our father when we were towheaded children. We interfered with her business with her girls. She didn’t sell herself to men, only the bodies of other women and thought herself a saint for it. I remember the man on the train that had seen us boys crying, heartbroken and scared at being unloved and castoff to a life and people we didn’t really know bending down low to our eye level. His long mustache twitching with his smile, his eyes leading ours down to his outstretched hand holding a peppermint candy for each of us. I remember the crinkle of the smooth plastic as I opened it, the mint mixing with the taste of tears, snot and too much anguish. As much as it seems like a nothing much thing, that small act of kindness did allay our fears that we deserved no kindness, had no place in the world. I would always love peppermint after that, it would always secretly touch that place that meant I could matter, that kindness existed in the world. Mama had loved us more ferociously than any tie of blood could forge. She had worried, calmed, disciplined, taught. She had dealt with my need to run off about every spring since the fourth grade. My feet would just get itchy and I had no means to calm the itch except to put feet to pavement and leave. I would join up with passing Medicine Shows, groups of actors, whatever struck my wandering fancy. I didn’t understand until much later that I was trying to outrun things that would follow me anyway. But somehow she understood that bereft of love feeling that worried me. Maybe its because she was not the kind of woman that drew a man’s eye, tiny, bespectacled and spare featured. She loved Daddy, but understood his fondness was born out of need, never want. I know she’s right and I need to put this into the past, but I don’t know how to outrun this. How do I outrun something I have only the barest memory of, no real knowledge of what my life had been? I only have the lasting feeling of terror, not always the concrete reason of how it got there. I don’t remember coming out of the jungle, hemorrhoids hanging like fleshy worms, my body broken by men I don’t recall, wracked with malaria. That time is a mix of fever dreams and the hellish reality of the brutishness of men. I don’t remember where I was, if I was held with other men, only the fear, the uncontainable need to escape as I always had. I don’t remember how I got out, I only know that I was found in pretty rough condition and sent to Australia to treat the malaria and injuries. I was a special case, because the treatment for malaria nearly killed me. Later in my life my children and grandchildren would fill in opinions disguised as facts about what they thought happened during that time. That I escaped and emerged from the jungle with a man I saved slung over my shoulder. That they had forced bamboo shoots under my fingernails in order to get me to talk. I let that one go on, because it secretly made me giggle. They would ask about my medals, where they were, why I didn’t care about them. I could never answer, the gaping whole of both the things I did remember and the things I didn’t was too carefully constructed to risk the shift of movement talking about it would cause. Before I was allowed to go back stateside, I was placed with a family to help with my convalescence. I don’t remember what the house of a neighboring woman I had made friends with looked like. It slips my mind whether her blue, maybe green, eyes were closed when I found her near dead. I remember the blood pouring onto my shirt as I lifted her, hearing the drip, drip, drip that meant I didn’t have much time. I remember seeing the police, the feeling that they could get her help. I remember every blow from their batons. Every scream of frustration with every swing to beat their version of the truth out of me. I remember the gruff “you’re free to go.” I remember letting my breath out, and sucking it sharply back in when the door closed behind me. I remember her wrists wrapped in bandages and eyes full of apologies when she told me her end of the story from that night. At that time I was separated but married still, with a mind to fixing things when I got home. I hadn’t learned yet that sometimes bad marriages make bad parents. But during what I had felt was just a friendship, light and no deeper connections to worry about, it didn’t feel the same for her. When she’d come to in the hospital she’d woken to policemen eager to pin me down and had to further injure her fragile emotions, admitting it was a case of the lovelorn lass. I made another good friend when I was there, an officer. It made me puff up a little every time he chose to spend time with a regular fella like me. I liked hearing him say “Now, PJ…” during those long days eased by the permission to rest. I kinda liked having a just between us nickname, like real friends. I don’t remember the name of the girl he fell in love with, I don’t remember what she looked like, what it felt like to see them in love and carefree in a way we hadn’t been allowed in so long. I do remember him coming to me for a favor. I remember him clapping me on the shoulder in that “do a favor for a pal” way. “Now, PJ, I know I’m slated to leave before you, but I just want a little more time. I love her, and I need a little time to figure out how things are gonna go. Just switch flights with me, what’s it gonna hurt? It’s a win-win situation, PJ. I get more time here, and you get home sooner.” I remember agreeing, happy that I could be instrumental in this couple of lovebirds story. I remember getting the news after I had returned home that the plane had gone down. No survivors. The plane I should have been on. The plane that should have left my children fatherless, erased any more children I would have, the grandchildren. The millions of moments that would have made up his life were given to me instead. That day in the side yard I said none of those things. I tucked into myself and pushed down the memories of every year, every battle, those lost months and what happened in them, the sounds, the smells, the faces behind guns and on bloody land. I would later push them down so hard that I would begin to have migraines or blackouts, or both. The doctors said it was because they didn’t know anything about how to treat what happens to a person’s mind when it’s been moved, twisted, broken, shaped and reshaped by war. They didn’t know how to stop the war that continued in our minds, whether in vibrant color, or pushed down under the surface. I would not remember any of those terror filled days, the things that were done to me, the things I’d seen, the things I’d done in the name of war for most of the rest of my life. When my vision faded, my hearing muffled, and I settled into old age my Julia began to have pain. She’d always been a steady one, strong in body and faith. As the cancer consumed her, the walls I’d built around all those old pains began to crumble. They never came back to me during the days filled with making the time I had my Julia last as long as I could, drinking in every sweet second. But at night when the walls were at their weakest, the memories came back, were screamed, groaned, murmured bouncing between the walls of my small room. I felt like that young man swinging around that pole again, but this time I remembered why. They’d mostly retreat back into their dusty corners at daybreak, but I knew they would replay on my eyelids as they closed for one more battle every night.

I have an adversary, not an aunt The Thanksgiving table is our battleground Where she passes judgment, not stuffing Offended that I don’t want a slice Of her ideology

To her, my existence is not gravy It’s an attack On her everything
So she launches a sneaky offensive Small jabs marching between mashed potato hills Hoping she can provoke me

I know I’m right So try as I might I can’t help but bite And as a result My favorite meal is bland

I am stuck there Fed up, but not full While everyone else is washing dishes Chatting gratefully That they’re out of the war zone Enjoying their pie

It’s partly my fault I know that converting others to her beliefs To her conspiracies Is the only way they can survive But I’m a person, not practice And deep down she still loves me But she won’t hear me, she won’t even try

It didn’t use to be this way But todays world Carves every family’s turkey wrong

She used to be one of my favorite aunts Aunt Susie, where have you gone?

A welcome home party tomorrow, she said.

I don’t know whether to laugh or scream at the absurdity of it.

A welcome home party, for a man who’s not home.

I can’t be home.

Not when my ears still ring with gunfire, not when I see the blood of my dying brothers on my hands as I try to stop the bleeding, not while the smell of gunpowder mixes with the faintest hint of my wife’s perfume.

Strange, that doesn’t belong here. Not on this battlefield. She’s home, she’s safe. She’s raising my baby, without me.

Without me.

Growing up without me because I was a sacrifice, my family the collateral damage. A necessary sacrifice for the greater good, or so I thought, but what good can be found in a field of the dead?

My friends and enemies, all reduced to the same pile of gore in death.

How can I be home when I see them everywhere? When they lay around the plush carpet of a home I no longer belong in?

Wait that isn’t carpet after all. It’s dirt, mud. It’s the field I was last in, on that fateful day.

Screams full of pain and terror and frustration bounce around in my head filling it up, up, up.

I wish they would all shut up, up, up.

A clatter shocks me.

I jump upright, almost straight out of my body.

Oh, what do you know?

I AM out of my body. There I am down there.

I have the childish urge to wave at myself, but I don’t. I don’t do anything but watch. My wife is here with a hand on my arm. How strange. My hand snatches out and grips her wrist.

So much screaming. So much pain reaches me even up here near the ceiling.

I hate them. The ones I’m fighting, the ones who asked me to fight, the ones who need my protection.

Wait, that’s not right. I love them. Those who need my protection.

A whimper catches my attention and I shoot back into my body. My eyes focus on the pale face of my wife.

Pale, not because of her fair complexion, no, I recognize that specific skin tone. That’s the color of fear.

Why?

I look down and my hand still holds her white knuckled, I quickly let go.

Embarrassed, angry, scared.

She says something.

Something…

God, why can’t everyone just stop screaming?!

My hands cover my ears and I can’t explain why but I join my friends.

I scream with them.

I think I’m on my knees, yes. The carpet. That’s carpeting between my fingers.

Soft, squishy.

Such a blessed relief from war.

Hard, unyielding.

I lay down basking in the softness.

Another whimper, but I can’t bear to look at my wife.

I can’t bear to explain myself again. So I lay there and close my eyes.

What a mistake to think sleep would save me.

Blood is everywhere, no not blood.

Gore.

The ground is littered with it. Or more aptly, with us.

Jackson, Wells, Miller, Wilson, Moore.

All there if I were to put their body back together like the jigsaw puzzles my mother once loved. I cringe as I think of my mother, immediately regretting bringing her memory to this unholy ground.

A grenade with the force of a nuclear blast hits the ground next to me and I fly in the air. My leg shoots off of me in one direction but that can’t be right.

I look down at my body for confirmation I’m safe but I don’t get it because I don’t have a body. Just a headless man without his horse.

I scream and shoot up from the floor. A blanket tangles me up and I fight it like I would against a hostile. Choking the fabric in my grip while shuddering with rage and fear.

My eyes blink open and I see the material in my death grip.

Oh hell, not again.

I drop the blanket and try to draw in a deep breath but the air is squeezed from my lungs as a child walks towards me.

Not just a child. My child. My Jesse.

“Daddy?” My son asks in such an innocent voice it’s a wonder I don’t howl my misery right then.

“Yes baby. It’s okay.” I reassure him as I hold my hand out. He grabs it tentatively and I pull him towards me. Scooping my baby in my arms and holding onto him as if he was my life raft.

No, not raft. My anchor. Holding me in place during this storm.

“Why you so sad, Daddy?” My baby pleads with me and I’m not sure why he thinks I’m sad until he touches my cheek, wiping away the dampness.

“Sometimes Daddies get sad too.” I answer softly as I squeeze him into me and sniff the top of his head.

Not the smell of gunpowder, but of my baby.

My reason to fight.

A shudder wracks down my spine. My safe baby.

Safe because of me.

I sigh and look at my son regret twisting my heart as I realize just how big he is now.

I missed so many years.

Important fucking years.

A light turns on and my wife stands in the hallway in a white nightgown, a yellow glow behind her making her look celestial.

But her face is not as serene and rage twists her features.

———

Turns out my wife wasn’t as understanding as my little Jesse.

The fight that ensued was the first of many.

The welcome home party was disastrous.

And within the first year of my return I was served with divorce papers.

I’ve been homeless for two years now. And all I can think of as men and women and children pass by me where I’m curled into the wall of a popular fast food restaurant is that I fought for you. My friends died for you.

And this was the thanks I got.

Blake sat alone in his dimly lit room, his tired eyes staring blankly at the wall. He had returned from the battlefield just a few weeks ago, but it felt like a lifetime had passed since then. The memories of the conflict haunted him, clawing at his mind and tormenting his soul. His heart raced, his palms were sweaty, and his body trembled involuntarily. The weight of the war seemed to bear down on him, crushing his spirit.

As he closed his eyes, images flashed before him like a relentless slideshow. The deafening roar of gunfire, the acrid smell of burning rubble, and the anguished cries of his fallen comrades echoed in his ears. Every night, he relived the horrors of war, unable to escape the nightmares that plagued his sleep.

Blake's mind was a warzone in itself, battling with the memories that threatened to consume him. He questioned his purpose, his actions, and the righteousness of the cause he fought for. The lines between right and wrong, good and evil, grew blurry, leaving him lost in a world of moral ambiguity.

His once vibrant spirit had been shattered, replaced by a heavy burden of guilt and sorrow. He couldn't shake the feeling that he could have done more, saved more lives, or prevented the destruction he witnessed. The weight of the lives lost weighed heavily on his conscience, their faces etched into his memory like a permanent scar.

Blake's family and friends tried to reach out, offering comfort and support, but he felt disconnected from them. How could they understand the atrocities he had witnessed, the darkness that now consumed him? He felt like a stranger in his own skin, unable to articulate the depths of his pain.

Days turned into nights, and nights into an endless cycle of torment. Blake's sleep grew restless, filled with violent thrashes and sweat-soaked sheets. He was trapped in a never-ending battle, fighting against the demons that lurked within his mind, desperate for a moment of respite.

One day, as Blake sat alone in his room, staring at the wall, he noticed a ray of sunlight breaking through the darkness. It was as if a glimmer of hope had found its way into his desolate existence. Slowly, he began to reach out, seeking help from those who understood the scars of war.

Through therapy and the support of fellow veterans, Blake started to find solace in their shared experiences. He realized that he was not alone in his struggles and that healing was possible, though it would be a long and arduous journey.

As time passed, Blake learned to cope with his PTSD. The nightmares became less frequent, and the weight on his shoulders lightened. Though the scars remained, he found strength in the knowledge that he had survived, that he was not defined by the darkness of war.

Blake's story serves as a reminder of the silent battles fought by countless soldiers returning from conflict. It sheds light on the importance of understanding, compassion, and support for those who have sacrificed their peace of mind on the battlefield.

It was so quiet it hurt. She hadn’t been somewhere this silent for four years, besides the mass cremations every other day. They’d given ten seconds of pause to honor the fallen before getting back to war. It was all they could afford. And now it was over. They’d won. Drinks were flowing, freedom songs being belted out as loud as possible, as people laughed and cried with relief. But she couldn’t feel anything. Her heart beat in time with her footsteps. Right, left. Right, left. They looked her in the eyes and told her she’d won. Then why did it feel as if had lost the part of her that mattered most? She stopped automatically. She’d never been here before, but her feet knew where to carry her. The brick of marble came into focus. There was a whole field of them. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of bricks sat strewn around the field with uniform walkways, a bit of sense among insensible grief. The memorial yard was empty, the revealers occupying the space furthest from it as if hiding from the truth. That their joy had been won by blood. But her reality was pain, her eldest friend Death. And as she stood there, she could feel It hovering over shoulder, as if contemplating — well, that was Its business. Once again, her gaze fixed on the brick of marble in front of her. Her reflection shone back at her, but it wasn’t her thick eyelashes or full hair she gazed upon. Instead, she saw a longer face, similar features but undeniably masculine. Ruffled hair, sharper features resting ever so different from hers. A tear fell, breaking the illusion and seeping into the cracks of the incomplete inscription. Where one name sat, hers was missing. A loyal soldier and loving twin, it read. But that wasn’t right, either. A part of her had been ripped away. She was incomplete, raw, naked. She hadn’t lost a loving twin. She had lost her other half. And as she turned and headed towards the lights, she left that piece behind, trailing blood from the one wound that would never heal.

Wow the days really have passed here. People, have passed here. Aunt Betty is now gone- People who were children are now full grown adults, With thoughts… and opinions. Too many in my opinion. My mother! Where is my mother? I can’t believe walking down the abandoned street full of childhood memories made me forget about my dearest. My loved ones. My mother. I can just picture her standing there, arms wide open. But she’s not. Just a silent house, unfulfilled of its point in life to have someone live in it. No- there’s no one. I bang on the door in utter tears, crying out for my mother like a baby bird to their parents. But I know deep down she hasn’t been here for a while. Or anywhere for that matter apart from….. nevermind. It hurts to even think of that word. Home sweet home? But a little less sweet.