Of Ashes and Dust by Ron Roman

Author:Ron Roman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction & Literature
Publisher: Histria Books
Published: 2022-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

***

I could walk away from the torn expectations of the town, expectations blasted apart that night at the school auditorium, yet I remained helpless in the struggle with my rematerializing Vietnam ghosts. I had gone several weeks without a conscious recurrence, but the next afternoon they hit with full force. I had gone to take a nap on the living room sofa; Kimiko and Mark had apparently reconciled and were talking in hushed tones in the next room. I must’ve sounded like a lunatic; Kimiko rushed over and kneeled at my side.

“What? What is it?” She gently put her hand on my forehead, then rose to go to the kitchen and returned with a wet hand towel for my face, which was dripping sweat. She had witnessed similar episodes, though this one was by far the worst for her. “You try to relax.” She dabbed the towel to my forehead and continued holding my hand.

I dreamt of lying limp on that musty Army cot in that boiling jungle — and of the needle inserted behind my ear. This time I remembered, hazily though, of peering through the tent opening and contemplating — almost identifying with, of being — an image of a small, silvery-gray UFO hovering, silently, barely above the tree line.

“Hmph. Bet you never got service like that in ‘Nam, eh, Billy Boy?” Mark stood over me, grinning.

“I had that dream again, Mark. This time there was a UFO — right outside the tent where I lay after I got hit outside Loc Ninh, the time when the major bled to death lying next to me.” I was embarrassed but continued. “This sounds crazy. There was the number sixty-seven. Some kind of significance to it. I experienced it synesthetically. Like I could taste it, feel it.”

The grin faded; his face transformed into a mask of brooding intensity. “A memory repressed like that can cut you worst of all, and you wouldn’t even know it, like staggering in the dark right before the dawn.”

“What kind of gibberish is that?” I demanded.

“You take it easy now, Will.” Kimiko pushed me back and loosened my shirt button.

“Here.” Mark stooped over and began massaging me behind my ear at the exact site of my injection. It felt good. Kimiko’s touch was gentle; Mark’s was powerful. Call it what you may, camaraderie between veterans, what have you, but at that moment, his hand was the more reassuring. “Do you remember? Evil is as evil does.”

Now, what’s that supposed to mean? I thought to myself.

“Bill?”

“Yes, Mark.”

“I wanted for you to — no, nothing.”

And I drifted back to sleep….

Mark was up early the next day as usual. His boss had suggested he take a month-long ‘hiatus’ from work, he said, in hopes that business would pick up after that. I had slept the entire afternoon and evening, while Kimiko had already gone to class — what was left of the crumbling curriculum at Swenson.

People prayed conditions wouldn’t get worse, that they’d at least level off. But when global oil supplies trickled, so did other basic services like mail delivery.

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