The Haunting Hero

“ . . . up, you old fool.”

“Ooowww!  Quit poking me.  Why don’t ya just use a cattle prod?  Damn, woman---I was sound asleep.”

“Well, I wasn’t---thanks to you screaming ‘Run, George!  Run!’  It’s that same nightmare again, ain’t it?” 

“I --- I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh huh.  You can‘t lie to me, Thomas.  Not after forty years of putting up with your foolishness.  Sit up and look at me.”

“Ok --- Ok --- I’m looking.  What do ya want?”

“You’re soaking wet.  I can smell the fear coming off of you.”

“For Christ’s sake, Wilma.  The sun’s not even up yet.  Now, go back to sleep and give me some peace.”

“Not til you tell me who the hell ’George’ is and what this is all about.”

“It’s nothing.  I don’t even remember the dream now.”

“I think you need to see one of those head-doctors.  Maybe they can help.”

“I don’t need some cocky shrink, half my age, snooping into my brain.  Now, I said let it go.”

“Fine --- go ahead and scare me half to death with your wailing.  I might as well set the coffee pot to perking since we’re wide awake.”

Thomas listens to the old stairs creak as Wilma plods down to the kitchen.  He drops back on his pillow and stares at the blackness against the window. 

The dream is still fresh --- an undeletable recording, activated by an uncontrollable remote, at unannounced show-times.  On the screen, in the theater of his mind, he watches Corporal George McClain distract the Vietcong by noisily zigzagging through the jungle, allowing Thomas and his fellow Marines to quietly escape through the jungle in the opposite direction.  The report of the AK-47s is surround-sound clear.