Screams in the Light

 He awoke with a start. Cold sweat trickled down his neck and down his spine, and a chill which made his hair stand on end coursed through him. He couldn’t remember what had startled him so badly, but the image of pure white light had seared his eyes. The man pushed the sheets of his cold bed off of his stiff legs and painfully got to his feet. The clock on his nightstand read a ghastly early hour, but the man knew he would not find comfort that night. His mouth was dry and sticky. A glass of water was what he needed.

           The man stumbled down the dark hallway blindly, finding his way with his hand across the wall. He was nearly all the way across the hall when his hand found the doorway. He tried to resist the urge to grab the handle, but he found himself turning it. He swung the door open and peered inside. The man found what he had expected, a dark, small room with pink walls and an equally small, neat bed. A small rocking horse stood rigidly in the corner, reflecting bright moonlight. The light was bright against his weary eyes. The man slowly retreated back into the hall, not finding comfort in what he had expected to find. He had expected an empty room, and that is what he found. They’ll come back, the man thought. But he knew it wasn’t true.

           The man grabbed the railing of the staircase and stepped slowly down the stairs, his cracking joints weak underneath him. He was an aching, numb man, but he could not recall what had brought him such torture. He continued down the stairs, one step at a time, until he finally stopped. He slowly turned to the wall beside him and looked at the frame that was hung. Inside the frame, behind the glass, several medals were displayed. He couldn’t remember what he had done to earn them, but there they were, displayed as if they had always been there. In the center of the medals was one with a bright purple ribbon, with a purple heart medallion. The man was familiar with the medallion, knew it meant something, but his understanding did not reach much further. With great effort, he took hold of the frame, grabbing the sides with his hands, hoping to get a closer look at the prized medallion. But as he lifted the frame from its hanger, it slid from his hands immediately and crashed to the ground. The glass shattered and the frame splintered, leaving the medallion on the steps below him. The man trudged down the remaining stairs, but did not bother picking up the heart medallion. He knew he would not be able to bend to reach it. He heard the glass crackle beneath his bare feet as he walked to the kitchen, but it was alright. He couldn’t feel it anyway. Everything was numb.

           With great concentration, the man held the cup under the running faucet, sure not to let it slip from his hands. It satisfied him that he could do it himself, most of the time someone did these things for him. He brought the cup to his mouth with a shaky hand, and let the cold water soothe his lips. But at that moment a terrible pain arose in the man’s head, knocking the man to his knees. He held his head in his hands and screamed in pain, as if he was trying to stop it from splitting. The man was on his knees in pain when he heard something in front of him. It was a wheeze, a painful gasp. The man removed his hands from his head and looked up to see what was before him.

           It was a man, a man he had seen before. The man wore a tattered uniform, a uniform of green and gray, with red stains across the front. The man’s face was badly burned, and he lied on the kitchen tile, a bloody arm outstretched, his other hand over his throat. The man looked into the soldier’s pleading blue eyes; certain they were familiar. Water, the soldier croaked. The man looked down to his side where he realized the cup of water he had been holding sat next to him. The man slowly grabbed the cup with a shaky hand and crept toward the soldier, pressing the cup into the soldier’s hand. With a hand still over his neck, the soldier brought the water to his lips, and choked it down. After a moment, the soldier finally set down the cup on the kitchen tile and looked up at him, his piercing blue eyes full of tears. Thank you, Arthur, the soldier said. As the man heard his name come from the soldier’s dying lips, the soldier grabbed his hand, and that is when he began to fall.

           The man slammed into the earth, hard, as if he had been struck by a train. His ears rang like sirens in his head, his chest felt caved in, but he somehow found the strength to sit up and open his eyes. It was a place he remembered. Blood stained the earth, fire and smoke consumed the night, and faraway blasts shook the ground beneath him. He heard gunfire all around him, but they had stopped fazing him long ago. He found himself getting up from the ground, covered in dust, but the actions were not his own. He was seeing out of his own eyes, but the actions he took were not active ones. He was watching, surveying, remembering. Remembering, he realized, was what this was. The man watched as he came upon the soldier, now dead, lying limp on the ground. Lynn, his uniform read, a name he had known. The man, Arthur, as he had been called, remembered with sorrow that the dead soldier before him had been one of his men. His piercing blue eyes peered out lifelessly at Arthur. Arthur closed them with his hand. The gunfire seemed to grow around him, louder and louder, deafening. He heard the cries of his men in the distance, calling his name. He watched as he stumbled toward the sound, the sound of their voices, the sound of their screams. His feet dragged against the stony dirt underneath him, but he continued forward. The gunfire and cries of his men grew louder and louder, until finally, he found them. He had run toward them, his lost men, he remembered that. But what happened next, he did not want to remember. But he had to. He had to remember. He watched as they turned to him, momentarily, surprise and thrill across their faces. They didn’t even see it come. But Arthur did. Over their backs, a grenade was thrown, landing neatly at their feet. The last thing Arthur remembered was the screams in the light. 

Arthur opened his eyes to find that he was lying on the carpeted floor of his daughter's room. His eyes were sore from crying and the memory of his lost men hurt his heart. He often wondered why he had been spared from the explosion, and why his men had to die. Did they deserve to die? Did Arthur deserve to live? He did not know. As he lied on the floor, he looked to the window above him. Between the slits of the blinds, a small, soft light shown through. The sun was rising. This, and this alone, made Arthur smile.