I Do Not Like The Dark.
I do not like the dark.
It is dark here.
I am alone.
In the dark.
It is not silent, it has not been silent for some time.
Always a dull thud. As far as I can remember.
The floor shakes.
I do not like it. It brings back the memories.
They come all the time but more in the dark.
Where am I?
Have we crossed yet?
I remember when I liked the dark. When I was not afraid.
I used to lie in bed with Mama and Papa. Peaceful in the dark.
Papa would tell stories.
Before.
Before I knew.
There are no heroes in battle. Just dead or not dead.
The heroes are those whom the bullets missed.
I remember staring into the dark watching the battles.
Never counting the dead.
In war all you do is count the dead.
I do not trust what I cannot see.
The dark is their friend.
The ground has stopped shaking. We are no longer moving.
I must choose my moment well.
The dark has failed me before.
…black…bound in black…wrists…ankles…
…mouth…a hood…or night…I cannot remember…
…it has been so long…
what are they going to do…
They came for him.
In the dark.
The war came to our fields.
They took Papa.
…rifle butt raised…blood…screaming…
…fallen body…broken windows…fire…
…they dragged him off…razed our home…
I think we are crossing. The lorry is still yet I feel movement.
This place is not too bad. I have spent nights in worse.
Concrete ruins.
Bullet holes everywhere and everywhere the whisper of death.
It was never dark then.
The sky lit by the shooting stars of tracers, the judgment of explosions.
The wind alive with the crump of mortars, the constant presence of tanks.
…watching through bullet holes…eggs in my pocket…
…bread in my arms…soldiers…rebels Papa said…
…enter the ruin we used as a home… I knew I would
never speak to Mama again…watched, frozen by fear…
…vomited…dropped the bread and ran…the image…
…branded into my soul…ran until I could run no more…
I sit here in the dark, close to the end of my running,
Papa’s hat pulled down over my eyes.
I long for dawn. I have been in death.
© Iain Maloney