Peace

They started one night - 29th December 2009. The dreams. I remember it so clearly as if etched in stone. It felt like a train had hit me and left me to wither on the tracks - and hit me hard, it did. I'd wake up in cold sweat with the memories of them fading in and out of my head like a dying melody and I'd be left to ponder if they were dreams or reality as it is. But then I see half a leg tangled among the sheets; a faithful evidence remains, a painful reminder that those were no mere dreams.

Every detail carved itself onto every part of my brain. Every single detail, I remember. The shrieks of children, the stones of buildings crumbling, bright fiery flame licking the night sky. They haunted me. Sometimes, I could call myself lucky when they came in short staccatos. Touching me shyly before withdrawing. Lucky. But they never never stopped coming. Sometimes, sometimes they change and I notice because I'd memorised it. But only in the slightest because it doesn't matter, no. I'd know what would come next. They all end in the same way. Flesh silenced by metal. It was a rerun of a bad movie I never want to lay eyes upon again.

I was plagued by terror, by fear like never before. Begs and pleas left unheard echoed in my head. Taunting me. They grasped me mercilessly and never showed signs of letting go. Never. It was a bad dream that I wanted to wake up from. Needed to wake up from. I wanted to chuck it away in the deepest recesses of a black hole.
For now I tell you, I've lived - if living is what you call this - in this grey twilight long enough. I couldn't reach far enough to catch reality in my hands nor was I swallowed whole by the past. Strapped down by the regrets of a yesterday and still lost in the hope of a tomorrow.

This is a story of a man who fought many wars and earned victories in them. A man who strived to find peace after. Today, I lay in my dying bed writing this to say I am sorry, I am truly truly sorry. I have finally found the peace I've searched for. I found Him. I found God. And I hope this peace will make its home in me because if it doesn't, I might weep more tears for the lost.

8th April 2012