Story: A Marine Wife
I don't know what inspired me to write this. It just kind of came out. It is really different from what I do. I hope it is somewat okay. - KellyP.S. This has some rather strong language. Thank you.
She knew her husband’s sleep was always troubled. It had been that way since he had returned from over there. He had nightmares about the needless killing, the crimson blood, and endless gore. Every night, he would wake up from the dreams in frenzy, screaming for someone to help him and night after night he would.
Yet she stood, or rather sat, at all hours of the night in their bed, her heart breaking at the sight she had to face night after night. In the short days before his actual homecoming, she would believe that nothing would have had changed between them. Neither had he right before he left for his deployment. These thoughts continued through their constant exchange of letters and e-mail. They talked of a peaceful future and spending every waking moment together like any young married couple would.
Yet at the airport, when she saw the look his eyes, she sensed a great change. He had this look, the thousand yard stare that unnerved her. Yet he hid it easily behind false cheer from a fake, sincere smile that seemed to be plastered across his face. He embraced her tightly, like a father had lost his child and only recently reclaimed her. During the first days, he seemed normal but at nights, his true transformation showed.
She found the man she took to be her other half as long as she lived to be completely different. She found him tormented from past memories that imprisoned him in nightmares that he had regularly every night when he closed his eyes to walk the world of dreams. He carried invisible scars that clung to his soul that could never be physically healed by any doctor or nurse. She saw him someone else completely different. He wouldn’t even let her help him anymore whenever he was in the most need.
She was quickly brought out of revere but an eardrum-piercing scream that would have woke the neighbors if they hadn’t been so far out in the middle of nowhere. He mumbled incoherently in his sleep, as if calling out, “Help me! Goddamnit! Somebody help me!”
She closed her eyes tightly and hovered her hand over his face. I would help him, she thought miserably, if only he would let me.
She slipped out of bed and crossed the room like a ghost to the corner where there was a collection of pictures on a small table next to a ratty chair. She looked over the pictures as memories of a life that had seemed like a pleasant dream had long gone by. She saw pictures of their wedding as she wore a plain and simple white dress and looked so insignificant compared to his marine dress blues, proudly showing his colors. A young happy couple was all they were.
She smiled sadly as she felt a shred of happiness from that day embrace her like a mother. Her short-lived bliss was quickly shattered when she heard him scream once more before sitting up in bed quickly breathing roughly. “You had another nightmare again,” she said distantly.
He looked at her dazed, confused, and lost for only a mere second as quickly replaced it with his mask of false reality. “No I didn’t,” he replied quickly, running his hand through his short hair in anxiety.
She drew a deep breath and said evenly, “Don’t lie to me.”
“I am not lying.”
“Yes you are! Ever since the day you came home from duty, all you do is lie…” she screamed, all the tension and frustration she had built up was finally coming out. “It is destroying you! It is destroying us! Can’t you see that?”
“You wouldn’t understand what I witnessed over there. I witnessed the death of innocent children from bombs. I saw my friends die right in front of me. I lost my innocence. Like I said, you would never understand.”
She was silent for a few moments trying to decide what she was going to say. “Yes I would because I see it in you every night. Nightmares plague you. Just tonight, you cried, ‘Help me! Goddamnit! Someone help me!’ And it was right then I wished I could just reach out and touch you and take all of your pain away and put it out myself. You are my husband and I promised to be with you for better or worse. I love you or have you forgotten that?”
“This is something I don’t want you to experience, no matter what. I love you to much to make you suffer as I do.”
“You damn jarhead.”
“I am serious.”
“So am I. I am your wife and I vowed to be with you for better or worse. I want to help you,” she replied gently and sat on the edge of the bed next to him. Gently taking his hand within hers, she started sincerely, “I would do anything to make your pain disappear,” she replied. “But the only the option that we have is to face this together.”
“There is nothing I can say to changer your mind, is there?”
“Hell no. You trained me to be as stubborn as hell. I am a Marine’s wife. I have to be. I’ll be strong for both of us. I love you that much.”
“You never had too.”
“I know but I want to.”
He nodded his throat dry. All he could do was embrace her tightly and never let her go. I am a lucky bastard, he decided, to have her as my wife. “I love you, too,” he breathed into her ear.
Thoughts, picture, and design © Kelly [me]