> I awake into the silence, but it isn't silent, it's just that there is no noise. I stare into the dark, there is more fear than I like to admit. Another dream, this one more real than the last causes this old heart to race. I wonder why it is always the innocent who suffer as if they are guilty. There are moments like this that leave sweat stains on the sheets and tears falling onto the pillow. I see his face, as he is there lying, dying, gasping for breath, asking questions that only a fool would ask. I guess in death we all become fools though, and what doesn't matter seems to be all that is thought about. I've seen more men die than most, and it is never the same, but it never really changes either. In the end, they are left alone in their darkness, though some took the time to pray for light.
> You can never undo what you've done, or at least I've never figured out how too. I have learned that there is a thin line that separates guilt from innocence, and once it is crossed; I fear it can never be uncrossed. There are so many screams that haunt the dreams I can no longer hide from. It seems like it is the dead who scream the loudest, trying to say what they never got a chance to say. In some office one time I was told that sorrow is sweet by some boy who was pretending to be a man. He didn't know, he couldn't, he had never seen the dying die, or the living wish for death. I know sorrow is damning, I knew it then, but didn't have the words to say it. I wonder why I remember these moments that will never matter. Why can I hear his words, but can't hear hers?
> I listen to a car idle carelessly somewhere on the street, are they coming or going, and does it even matter? I always thought that I would arrive somewhere, that didn't quite feel like where I had left, but it never worked. The names of the streets we walk down may not change, and all the people who cross our path can share the same name. Does that mean we live in the same world, somehow I doubt it. It is under protest, but I get out of bed, there is no point in laying here in this cold sweat. There is a newspaper on the table, but I stopped reading the headline months ago. The hallway is empty still, everyone hiding in fear of what they don't even know. I'm tired of living in isolation, of being kept here like a prisoner with nothing but memories for company.
> It feels like the longer I'm alone, the more real the memories become. The other night, I read something or another, I'm not even sure what. It was about the Vietnam war, and the author spoke like he understood what he never went through. He used words to describe how reckless we behaved, and how calloused we must have been. It seemed until then the world wanted to forget that war, and in forgetting the war it forgot the soldiers who fought in the war. I used to pass by them from time to time, on the streets, we spoke but never said a word. I remember one time someone saying the lucky ones must've died over there, what a fool, the lucky ones didn't even go. There are some memories that have never been forgotten. The moments in the night in which we did what we never thought we could do.
> I watched some men become hero's but so many more became cowards, hell even I became a coward. In the end we were all cowards, just some were able to hide it a little deeper than the rest of us. There were nights where bullets fell from the sky like rain. There were days without end where the groans of the dying became silent. I look out the window into the blue sky and come back to reality for just a moment. There is a time and a place to think about the war, but today shouldn't be that day. I go to the radio and hear the hum as the speakers come alive. There is a record in the player, something from a time when childhood was simple. At least it was more simple than the war I had gone off to in hopes of dying. How simple sadness is, and there is nothing that can make it go away.
> I guess I needed Robert to fight the battles I wasn't ready to fight. I needed his friendship, I just didn't want to accept the fact that I needed it. There was so much in life that he gave, and there was so little that I returned. He was there the morning I knocked on the door and said I had no choice but to run away. He was there when I returned broken and hopeless from the war. He was there when I wrote the letter blaming him for the way I had become, he was there when I sent a postcard asking for help. He was there when I finally got the courage to call and ask for forgiveness. He was there when I stopped calling and barely wrote a word on the post cards. He was always there as long as I wanted him there, and that is the tragic truth.
YOU ARE READING
Ghosts' of November
Historical Fiction"Ghost's of November" is a haunting exploration of love, loss, and the relentless pursuit of redemption. The story delves into the life of a protagonist who is trapped by memories of a troubled past, seeking peace in a world that offers little solac...
