Stories

Everywhere you look you are surrounded by stories, from the smallest and most simple ones to the biggest and most complicated one. They affect each other in one way or another. One thing we can be certain of, we are part of so many stories, we are a story, the whole world is a story, the past is a story, the present is a story. Even the future is another kind of story, the possibility of a story, the infinite possibilities of stories, in other words, the future is hope, hope that tomorrow will be a better day, that tomorrow we will be able to fix what we have broken today or any other day.
The story is always the most important thing, because it does not mater who the characters are, if they are white or black or blue or green or any other color of the spectrum or if it takes place in the city or the countryside or desert or some remote corner of the galaxy or if it is just another cliche or the most original piece of art. As long as the story is well presented and well structured, if it is told in an unique way, if it gets the message across, it has done it's job and it has done it well.
Stories are not just words, they are the blood of life, they are our hopes and dreams and they will always stay alive as long as at least one still remembers them. They can be told by anyone, no matter the experience of the storyteller.
But maybe the most important of all, they can give power to the weak against the almighty and with just the right story you can start revolutions, change regimes, save lives, change the world.

Demons in the night

I can hear their screams. Every time I go to sleep I can hear the screams of tormented souls ding all around me... I can never forget. The war has been over for what seem to be an eternity but I still have days when I close my eyes and open them to find myself on the battlefield again, surrounded by death and destruction and men who run around like mad dogs... and then I come back to my senses once again, sweating wet in my comfortable armchair inside my living room in an apartment on the fifth floor of a building somewhere in New York City.

They call it PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, repressed memories that resurface in the least expected moments, brought about by some trigger or another. They call it so because they do not understand... they do not know how it is like... they do not know how it was like.

Others who suffer from this condition would agree with me that this are not just repressed memories, but the souls of those that we have killed and have helped kill, in the name of whatever higher cause. They come back to haunt us, not because they are angry, but because they do not want to let us forget them, to forget our humanity, to remember them so that we may never repeat or let those actions be repeated by us or anyone else.

I am at peace with my demons, and I welcome them every time they decide to pay me a visit. I know that they need to come back from time to time, to see that I have not forgotten them. And I think that they are at peace with me too, as their visits have become fewer and fewer with the passing of time.

I may never have my peace, but by remembering, I make sure that they get theirs.