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.