Johnson, Eddie
Eddie Johnson hadn't been this sleepy in more than a year.
After being a prisoner, camping out in the jungle with some special forces soldiers seemed surreal.
He asked himself if it was only a dream, or if he had actually gone mad.
Maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe everything was in fact real.
As he listened to the sounds of the jungle, he became suddenly conscious of the fact this nightmare might be coming to an end. It was the first time, in over a year, that he let himself envision it.
He could barely recall that last year of his life.
His mind had been wiped clean of it. There were entire months missing, full of humiliation, torture, but even everyday life.
He would have liked to remember everything, but he simply couldn't.
He had the urge to do so, yet despite not knowing why, it just wasn’t possible.
In all actuality, all those memories were one big mass and continuously changing shape in his mind.
They’d kept him in solitary for months at a time and consistently tortured him. Ironically enough, he had no problems remembering that. In fact, that was something he just couldn’t forget, no matter how hard he tried.
Then, for a period they’d even kept him locked in a tiger cage, but he wasn’t sure when that was exactly, or for how long it had lasted.
Eddie’s jaw tightened as he fought back the urge to cry.
The cages were built with bamboo sticks and made for tigers. They were too small to hold a human being and that was exactly what made them so awful.
A few minutes spent on your knees, in a space as small as that was enough to make anyone lose their mind.
Eventually, you found yourself pushing against the bars which was absolutely pointless, but you did it anyways thinking it did your muscles good. In reality, it helped neither circulation nor your mistreated arteries, but you did it all the same.
The harder you pushed, the more of an obsession it became and insanity became a bomb waiting to go off.
Johnson put one hand over his mouth to contain his sobs. His eyes were burning.
That night everything all around him seemed so dark, a lot darker than usual.
He was afraid of the dark.
Locked in and trapped, feeling nearly squeezed to death in those damn cages. Johnson had spent days, nights and sometimes both, under the pouring rain.
One night, when everyone else was sleeping, a storm had broken out and it poured so hard that his cage almost flooded.
Not unlike the other caged up prisoners, he too risked drowning just as a rat would in a trap.
The VC guards, alarmed by the excessive rain, tried waking the camp up but were much more concerned about saving all the weapons, ammo and equipment first. Having to work as quickly as possible to ensure it didn’t all rot under water.
That night, Johnson watched a Vietnamese hostage in the cage next to his, drown before his very eyes.
Johnson was fully aware that that the water level was rising and maybe he was only moments away from the same kind of fate.
In fact, centimetre after centimetre, the rainwater got higher, his cage rocking slightly and he desperately struggled to keep his mouth above it all.
Only then did one of those damn dwarfs finally come down into his hole, moving around underwater which now covered him neck down. By opening all the cages, they were able to swim.
Once freed however, Johnson could hardly stand.
That was common when you came out of those damn cages.
By using his arms therefore, he dragged himself out, all the while screaming and sinking into the elbow high mud.
Reliving those memories made him shiver, and he knew full well he wouldn’t get back to sleep the night.
He slowly sat up and looked above for stars.
He had a small, vegetation free window of free sky above his head.
This seemed to calm him down somewhat.
The sky looked like a giant black blanket with a lot of little lights lit in it.
But Eddie Johnson had a lot of other ghosts in his head that needed to get out.
A wife and a son.
They were invisible.
He couldn’t see them, and could hardly remember their faces. They were like ghosts.
He tried to cry again, but nothing came out.
The stars listened quietly as he sobbed.
Like a child, he hoped his wife and son could hear his prayers.
He said ac prayer for the people he loved and hoped they could feel his love even imagine them.
He continued to pray for a long time.