Undream the Echoes
Just two lost lovers
Elle
07.01.2002
Today is the day.
It is hot out, so incredibly hot that it makes me want to die, so hot that I cannot move or breathe. The sun is pounding down on everyone and a bead of sweat is slowly making its way down my back. I feel flushed and gross and the air conditioner in my car is broken which makes everything so much worse. I want to die…and yet I have never been so excited in my life. I am happy despite the sun and the sweat and my stupid broken car. I am so happy.
I drive with the windows down, though the air rushing past me doesn’t do much to cool me off. I keep one hand on the steering wheel and I hang the other one out the window, allowing my hand to sway up and down, up and down, surfing the invisible waves of the air. I’m screaming and shouting along to the music that is not playing (my car’s radio is broken too) and people are looking at me like I’m a madwoman. I return their stares with a wink and a wave. I’m so happy and I want to share it with everyone else, even if it makes them think I’m chronically insane.
I have never been so happy to drive the two hours to get to the airport. I have never been so happy to have a dysfunctional car or so happy to embarrass myself or so happy to be this uncomfortable in the summer heat. I have never been so happy because today is the day.
Elle
04.21.2002
Liam has been gone for almost five months now. His time is almost over – however this thought brings me no sense of joy. Although it is true than in about five weeks he will be out of Afghanistan and back to the States, it does not mean he will be coming home. He will be stationed in Hawaii for an additional month for “post-war psychiatric recovering,” whatever the fuck that is. It isn’t fair that he’ll be gone for another month. And in Hawaii. Everything’s so gorgeous there and I know Liam will have a great time, swimming in the ocean and getting a tan and drinking exotic drinks, and for that I’m incredibly jealous. Secretly I wish that it storms there for an entire month so he hates the place. I know it’s selfish for me to think that, but I just want him to want to come home faster. What if he likes is there too much? What if he decides to stay there instead of coming back to me?
Of course those thoughts are ridiculous but I cannot prevent them from invading my mind. Liam seems the same – on paper, that is. We write to each other at least once a week, and I tell him stories from home while he tells me stories from where he’s stationed. But even in letters I can tell when Liam is lying. He’s severely editing the stories and leaving out the grotesqueness and brutality, as if he doesn’t think I can handle it. Well, I probably can’t. But still. It would be nice if he was able to tell me what he was going through, so I could be prepared for when he comes home. I would like to know how much he has changed.
In a few of the letters he sent me, he had spoken of his good friend Harry he had met while they were training. But then he stops mentioning him, and I ask why. In the next letter, Liam tells me in only one sentence that Harry had been killed as they were going through one of the towns and a horse blew up as they passed. The terrorists are keen on killing the Americans, so they have resorted to strapping bombs to animals. I’m sure what scares me more: That human beings would make animals explode in order to kill other human beings, or the fact that Liam had mentioned his friend’s brutal death in nothing more than one sentence. One sentence. The Liam I knew was not the sort of person who could get over loss that quickly. It makes me wonder if he is just editing the story again for my wellbeing, or if he isn’t the Liam I knew anymore.
On top of worrying over my husband every second of every day, I am also tortured by my loneliness. Who am I now that my Liam is gone?
In the first few weeks after his departure, I was okay. I still got up in the morning, went to work, hung out with friends, went to sleep. I was lonely but I was dealing with it. But now that loneliness has become heavier, so heavy that on some days I don’t think I can breathe anymore. I stop hanging out with friends. Then I stop going to work. Then I stop getting out of bed. All that is left is sleep.
Sleep had been a haven from the beginning, until it became haunted by nightmares. They are always different dreams, thought at the same time they are all sort of the same. They always include Liam and they always include his death. In some dreams he is shot; in others he is stabbed; and in others all I can see is dark red, blood and blood and more blood, and even though I cannot see Liam I have that awful piercing in my heart that tells me he is gone.
And every night I wake up, gasping and screaming, and I tell myself that it is all just a dream, just a dream, just a silly echo in my head. But then I realize that Liam could be shot and he could be stabbed and maybe he is being killed right now. So it isn’t a dream, not really, because at any second it could become reality.
The letters are the only things that kept me sane.
When Liam writes to me he does not write much about the war. He maybe mentions a thing or two about his training that day and what jet he got to fly. But he won’t mention that when he is in those jets, it is either to fight or to rescue dying soldiers. Instead he describes the view from up above and how pretty the desert is, despite the craters in the land caused by detonations. Afghanistan is not as ugly as a place as I thought it would be, he says in his scribbled handwriting.
I miss home, is something else he says frequently. At the end of each letter he asks questions like, How’s the garden doing? because he remembers that I planted white tulips last spring, in remembrance of the flowers Liam had given me in the early days of our relationship, after our first date when he was trying to woo me even though I couldn’t stand him. How’s Ms. Bertha from next door? he also asks, even though Ms. Bertha is a bitter old widow who hates Liam’s guts for reasons neither of us understand. Any new flavors at Garrett’s Dairy? Garrett’s Dairy is the local ice cream stand which is famous for adding a new flavor to the menu every summer.
In my letters to him, I answer all of Liam’s questions and gush to him about home, even though I find home boring and unbearable without him and even though I know that the more I talk about it, the more he misses it, and the more I miss him. I knew he is in a lot of pain, even more than me, because he misses me as much as I miss him and he is also burdened with the responsibility of killing. I miss home, he says again and again. People don’t die there.
Elle
07.01.2002
Today is the day Liam comes back.
I am at the airport. Families swarm the waiting area. Some people are excited, some are happy, some look very pale. All of us are nervous. I know what we are all thinking, for my thoughts are the same as them. It is as if each of us are a part of one great animal, one being that is twirling the same thumbs with impatience, buzzing with the same nervous laughter, breathing the same air that is filled with sweet and sour taste of anticipation. There is an electric current through flowing through all of us, making us jumpy and nervous and joyful and scared and overwhelmed and every other emotion we can think of. My happiness from before is gone, and I am scared.
Will he be the same? we are all thinking. The plane has landed and we are waiting for the doors to open, for the soldiers to walk through. When they do, we will simultaneously stand up, crane our necks, and search for the man we said goodbye to more than half a year ago. But what if I can’t find him? I know my soldier is alive – otherwise I would have gotten the phone call that I had dreaded and feared for weeks upon weeks – so I know that Liam will be stepping off the plane today. But maybe it won’t really be him. Not the old him, anyway. War is not something that can be forgotten. A man cannot fight and kill and be shot at and watch his friends die and then come home perfectly okay.
And then the doors open.
I see his profile amongst the dozens of other men. His face is like others – tired but relieved to be home – and I can pick out his angular features and penny-colored eyes in an instant. His hair is shorter, and his shoulders broader. His eyes dart all across the waiting room until our eyes lock. Everything freezes. My heart jolts and I do not know what I should do. I am scared again.
But then his face blooms into the most beautiful smile I have ever seen and it is then I forget my fears. Happiness returns, except this is not the screaming-and-smiling happiness I felt before; it is so powerful and lifting that I sort of forget who I am and what I am doing. For a moment I am not sure if this emotion is joy or an overpowering sadness, similar to when I step into the shower when it’s way too hot and my body isn’t sure if the water’s freezing cold or if it’s being burned. But I see Liam walking towards me, still smiling, different and yet the same, and I know for a fact that this is happiness.
I run towards him full speed, not caring that people are giving me stares or calling me rude as I push past them. Liam hardly has time to drop his bags before I hurtle into his arms, jumping up and wrapping my legs around his waist as he catches me. I kiss him as if I’m kissing him for the first time. In that kiss I lose my loneliness, my sadness, my despair. I lose everything except him and me. It is just us in that airport, no one else, just two lost lovers who have found each other again.
As he kisses me back, the same way he used to kiss me, I know that there is a little piece of the old Liam still there. No matter how much he has changed, there is a small spark of who he used to be that will be mine forever. And with this thought, I know that everything will be okay again. We will be together and we will be happy; my soldier has survived the war and nothing can take him away from me ever again. I have my Liam back. He is mine. He is mine.
07.01.2002
Today is the day.
It is hot out, so incredibly hot that it makes me want to die, so hot that I cannot move or breathe. The sun is pounding down on everyone and a bead of sweat is slowly making its way down my back. I feel flushed and gross and the air conditioner in my car is broken which makes everything so much worse. I want to die…and yet I have never been so excited in my life. I am happy despite the sun and the sweat and my stupid broken car. I am so happy.
I drive with the windows down, though the air rushing past me doesn’t do much to cool me off. I keep one hand on the steering wheel and I hang the other one out the window, allowing my hand to sway up and down, up and down, surfing the invisible waves of the air. I’m screaming and shouting along to the music that is not playing (my car’s radio is broken too) and people are looking at me like I’m a madwoman. I return their stares with a wink and a wave. I’m so happy and I want to share it with everyone else, even if it makes them think I’m chronically insane.
I have never been so happy to drive the two hours to get to the airport. I have never been so happy to have a dysfunctional car or so happy to embarrass myself or so happy to be this uncomfortable in the summer heat. I have never been so happy because today is the day.
Elle
04.21.2002
Liam has been gone for almost five months now. His time is almost over – however this thought brings me no sense of joy. Although it is true than in about five weeks he will be out of Afghanistan and back to the States, it does not mean he will be coming home. He will be stationed in Hawaii for an additional month for “post-war psychiatric recovering,” whatever the fuck that is. It isn’t fair that he’ll be gone for another month. And in Hawaii. Everything’s so gorgeous there and I know Liam will have a great time, swimming in the ocean and getting a tan and drinking exotic drinks, and for that I’m incredibly jealous. Secretly I wish that it storms there for an entire month so he hates the place. I know it’s selfish for me to think that, but I just want him to want to come home faster. What if he likes is there too much? What if he decides to stay there instead of coming back to me?
Of course those thoughts are ridiculous but I cannot prevent them from invading my mind. Liam seems the same – on paper, that is. We write to each other at least once a week, and I tell him stories from home while he tells me stories from where he’s stationed. But even in letters I can tell when Liam is lying. He’s severely editing the stories and leaving out the grotesqueness and brutality, as if he doesn’t think I can handle it. Well, I probably can’t. But still. It would be nice if he was able to tell me what he was going through, so I could be prepared for when he comes home. I would like to know how much he has changed.
In a few of the letters he sent me, he had spoken of his good friend Harry he had met while they were training. But then he stops mentioning him, and I ask why. In the next letter, Liam tells me in only one sentence that Harry had been killed as they were going through one of the towns and a horse blew up as they passed. The terrorists are keen on killing the Americans, so they have resorted to strapping bombs to animals. I’m sure what scares me more: That human beings would make animals explode in order to kill other human beings, or the fact that Liam had mentioned his friend’s brutal death in nothing more than one sentence. One sentence. The Liam I knew was not the sort of person who could get over loss that quickly. It makes me wonder if he is just editing the story again for my wellbeing, or if he isn’t the Liam I knew anymore.
On top of worrying over my husband every second of every day, I am also tortured by my loneliness. Who am I now that my Liam is gone?
In the first few weeks after his departure, I was okay. I still got up in the morning, went to work, hung out with friends, went to sleep. I was lonely but I was dealing with it. But now that loneliness has become heavier, so heavy that on some days I don’t think I can breathe anymore. I stop hanging out with friends. Then I stop going to work. Then I stop getting out of bed. All that is left is sleep.
Sleep had been a haven from the beginning, until it became haunted by nightmares. They are always different dreams, thought at the same time they are all sort of the same. They always include Liam and they always include his death. In some dreams he is shot; in others he is stabbed; and in others all I can see is dark red, blood and blood and more blood, and even though I cannot see Liam I have that awful piercing in my heart that tells me he is gone.
And every night I wake up, gasping and screaming, and I tell myself that it is all just a dream, just a dream, just a silly echo in my head. But then I realize that Liam could be shot and he could be stabbed and maybe he is being killed right now. So it isn’t a dream, not really, because at any second it could become reality.
The letters are the only things that kept me sane.
When Liam writes to me he does not write much about the war. He maybe mentions a thing or two about his training that day and what jet he got to fly. But he won’t mention that when he is in those jets, it is either to fight or to rescue dying soldiers. Instead he describes the view from up above and how pretty the desert is, despite the craters in the land caused by detonations. Afghanistan is not as ugly as a place as I thought it would be, he says in his scribbled handwriting.
I miss home, is something else he says frequently. At the end of each letter he asks questions like, How’s the garden doing? because he remembers that I planted white tulips last spring, in remembrance of the flowers Liam had given me in the early days of our relationship, after our first date when he was trying to woo me even though I couldn’t stand him. How’s Ms. Bertha from next door? he also asks, even though Ms. Bertha is a bitter old widow who hates Liam’s guts for reasons neither of us understand. Any new flavors at Garrett’s Dairy? Garrett’s Dairy is the local ice cream stand which is famous for adding a new flavor to the menu every summer.
In my letters to him, I answer all of Liam’s questions and gush to him about home, even though I find home boring and unbearable without him and even though I know that the more I talk about it, the more he misses it, and the more I miss him. I knew he is in a lot of pain, even more than me, because he misses me as much as I miss him and he is also burdened with the responsibility of killing. I miss home, he says again and again. People don’t die there.
Elle
07.01.2002
Today is the day Liam comes back.
I am at the airport. Families swarm the waiting area. Some people are excited, some are happy, some look very pale. All of us are nervous. I know what we are all thinking, for my thoughts are the same as them. It is as if each of us are a part of one great animal, one being that is twirling the same thumbs with impatience, buzzing with the same nervous laughter, breathing the same air that is filled with sweet and sour taste of anticipation. There is an electric current through flowing through all of us, making us jumpy and nervous and joyful and scared and overwhelmed and every other emotion we can think of. My happiness from before is gone, and I am scared.
Will he be the same? we are all thinking. The plane has landed and we are waiting for the doors to open, for the soldiers to walk through. When they do, we will simultaneously stand up, crane our necks, and search for the man we said goodbye to more than half a year ago. But what if I can’t find him? I know my soldier is alive – otherwise I would have gotten the phone call that I had dreaded and feared for weeks upon weeks – so I know that Liam will be stepping off the plane today. But maybe it won’t really be him. Not the old him, anyway. War is not something that can be forgotten. A man cannot fight and kill and be shot at and watch his friends die and then come home perfectly okay.
And then the doors open.
I see his profile amongst the dozens of other men. His face is like others – tired but relieved to be home – and I can pick out his angular features and penny-colored eyes in an instant. His hair is shorter, and his shoulders broader. His eyes dart all across the waiting room until our eyes lock. Everything freezes. My heart jolts and I do not know what I should do. I am scared again.
But then his face blooms into the most beautiful smile I have ever seen and it is then I forget my fears. Happiness returns, except this is not the screaming-and-smiling happiness I felt before; it is so powerful and lifting that I sort of forget who I am and what I am doing. For a moment I am not sure if this emotion is joy or an overpowering sadness, similar to when I step into the shower when it’s way too hot and my body isn’t sure if the water’s freezing cold or if it’s being burned. But I see Liam walking towards me, still smiling, different and yet the same, and I know for a fact that this is happiness.
I run towards him full speed, not caring that people are giving me stares or calling me rude as I push past them. Liam hardly has time to drop his bags before I hurtle into his arms, jumping up and wrapping my legs around his waist as he catches me. I kiss him as if I’m kissing him for the first time. In that kiss I lose my loneliness, my sadness, my despair. I lose everything except him and me. It is just us in that airport, no one else, just two lost lovers who have found each other again.
As he kisses me back, the same way he used to kiss me, I know that there is a little piece of the old Liam still there. No matter how much he has changed, there is a small spark of who he used to be that will be mine forever. And with this thought, I know that everything will be okay again. We will be together and we will be happy; my soldier has survived the war and nothing can take him away from me ever again. I have my Liam back. He is mine. He is mine.
♠ ♠ ♠
There will be a few other chapters about Liam’s time at war; there will be another one about Elle’s time alone and at least one about Liam’s experiences fighting. So don’t be confused when we return to this time period because it isn’t quite over yet.