Don't Let Me Go

The weather broadcast stated it would be a rainy day. It was sunny when I woke up in the morning, still tired, because of my persistent inability to sleep properly. I hadn’t been able to have a good night’s sleep in years.

Constant stress and pain; not the best combination for those who wish to sleep like the dead. I was staying at home that week because my herniated disc flared up once more.

So, after I had my breakfast, the day went on as per usual; I walked the dog, cleaned the apartment and then sat down on my ass to kill some time. I was so caught up in the nothingness I had dozed off whilst watching a movie, Mr. Tusk, I think… not sure. Don’t really remember.

As I sat there in my chair, slumped over like a sack of potatoes, out of the blue a sky shattering explosion roared above me. It sounded like a bomb going off above my head as it shook the walls of my apartment. Trust me, I know how bombs going off sound; ate rockets from our northern neighbor in 06 and later served in the military as a combatant. Anyway, I digress, the electricity went out.

Everything fell silent for a moment.

I felt myself tense up immediately, my heart went from zero to a hundred miles per hour in an instant. My dog, Jessica came into my room looking at me with a puzzled doggy stare. I went up to her; I bent down trying to comfort her as the rolling explosive noises kept on raging outside. Truth be told, if anyone had seen me at that moment, I’m sure they’d say the Jessica was comforting me. I felt myself shake and my whole body stiffened as I was trying to maintain a steady breath.

My mind, it was racing. I was waiting for the sirens to sound off; ready to hoist the near eighty-pound dog on my already screaming back and carry her into the bomb shelter downstairs. The events around me set my mind on the 12th of July 2006, when the sirens cried for the first time, that’s when the second Lebanese war had begun. I was an eleven-year-old kid on his summer break. Eight in the morning, the sirens rang, I bolted into my brother’s room to wake him up and dragged us both into the bomb shelter.

I didn’t wanna go back there again; I didn’t want to go back to that black month. The one month that fundamentalist ideologies had stained with constant whistling and banging noise of rocket impact, along with the terrible wailing of the sirens. A quieter noise, something constant and steady that sounded as if gradually replaced the loud banging outside. It sounded like I had a waterfall next to my apartment that or someone was firing from a mass of machine guns in the distance.

At that moment, I was certain it was the latter because I could hear the roaring of plane engines above me.

Another loud banging noise shattered the skies outside, accompanied by a flash of bright light that illuminated half of the apartment. The noise sent chills down my spine. I felt my heart trying to break through my rib cage and escape it confides. Every muscle in my body felt sore because of the strain caused by the sudden surge of cortisol in my veins.

At that moment, when my mind raced like crazy, I wanted to get to the window; I needed to see what was going on. I had to see what the explosive had done. I pushed myself up, but my calf cramped underneath me, sending me crashing down to the cold hard floor of the hallway between the bedrooms. Once my face contacted the floor, everything went black for just a millisecond; then I was back inside a hell’s mouth.

I saw myself once again, dressed in a uniform, holding a naked M4 riffle. Aiming my weapon at a group of terrorists. Screams and curse words flew all around me muffled by the sound of rapid gunfire. One of my friends was lying next to me, grasping at his gut; he was no longer making any sounds. Bodies dropped onto the damp soil of that tunnel like flies, on both sides.

I’ve lost a few friends.

The fire stopped, only the screaming of the dying remained. Searing pain coursed through my calf again, it was so familiar yet so distant. The screaming died down, a cruel static sound that drowned everything, everything but the sound of someone sobbing miserably… I looked around and saw nobody sobbing.

All I saw was a pile of corpses, dirt and a group of young men who had lost their youth.

The sobbing grew louder, quickly drowning away the static noise. I rubbed my eyes and the next thing I felt was a dog’s tongue making its way around my facial features. I looked around, and I was back home, lying on the floor of my apartment; tears were streaming down my face. Unbearable pain gnawed at my lower limb. Another flash of light showered my apartment followed by the sound of another bomb going off.

My whole body shook, and I began crying screaming at the walls, “I don’t want to go back!”

“I can’t go back!”

I beg no one, “Don’t take me back, please don’t let me go back!”

I screamed at the top of my lungs, “I am never going back!” as the memories of tragedies past filled with the ghosts of the fallen and the scent of gunpowder tormented my mind.

I didn’t even notice Jessica run towards the door when my brother came back home.

I kept screaming helplessly as the demons of my past ate away at my brain.

Another flash of light blasted its way through the glass of my windows followed by yet another deafening explosion of sorts outside.

The voice of my brother snapped me back into reality when I heard him maniacally scream, “Oh what a storm, what a lovely storm!”