"THE DAY THAT NEVER COMES" By Davis Larsen

     I remember the war. I remember every second of it. I remember it at night, when I try to
shut out the world. I used to think sleep was an escape, but now sleep haunts me with
memories of the war. Memories of the lives I took, memories of the fire raining down
from the sky, memories of everything. Every night since I came back, this has
happened, and I have been home for only a month. Sure, all of this haunts me, but not
nearly as much as my own family. Am I supposed to feel comfortable around these
people? I feel like a stranger in the house that I bought, that I share with my wife, where
I raise my son and daughter. Every time the microwave goes off I remember the bombs,
the glorious explosions. The bombs represented finality, if you saw it over you, that's it.
Two more months pass by, I feel like a zombie, walking lifelessly through my daily
routine. My kids stare at my like I am some strange creature from another world, I am
too scared to do too much with them. Every night since I came home, my 12 year old
daughter asks me to read a book to her before she falls asleep. Every night I say no
because I am too tired. Too tired to read a book to my own daughter, who was heart
broken every night. Too tired to play catch with my 8 year old boy. Too tired to love my
wife, the woman that I should feel most comfortable with. My wife, she looks at me like I
am a bomb, one that could go off at any moment. How could they ever understand what
I went through? How could anyone? A couple more months go by, I begin to miss my
friends in my special operations team. I miss the times we shared and how they
understood. They understood why I stayed in the war. I wish they were still alive. I wish
they weren’t gunned down like nothing. After awhile I begin to miss the war itself, the
feeling of a gun in my hand, the power to take a life, I miss the combat, I miss feeling
something. Back home I get a job as a dishwasher at a well known mob restaurant
called The Kitchen Irish. I used to hold the power of life and death in my hands, now on
some nights I take out the trash. One night, the head of the Irish mob is eating dinner
and boasting about his recent scores of drugs and money. I ignore it as I clear the
tables and take out the trash, then I get this old and familiar feeling. The feeling before
an ambush. A rival gang came to attack the mob, I could have walked away, but never
again. So I stopped those men, they probably would have been in the hospital, if the
Irish didn’t kill them. The leader offered me a job as a hitman, of course I refused. But
then they began to antagonize me. They found the truth about me, about who I was
during the war, they threatened my family. They threatened to take my family. I couldn’t
just let that happen so I roughed up one of their guys and ended up taking the job.
However, I thought that if I was sneaky enough I could kill the leader and the gang, I
was so close to pulling that trigger, so close to freeing myself of this evil man.
Something stopped me, maybe I wanted to keep myself out of jail, or maybe I wanted to
keep my family away from who I truly am. The next day, the news is talking about how
the Kitchen Irish was taken out by some rogue team. I slept better that night, knowing
that me and my family was safe from them. Or so I thought. I decided to take my family
to the park for a day out. I finally felt at home, I finally felt like my old self. I was no
longer a man of war, a killer, but a family man. I was happy. If I wasn’t so caught up in
happiness I might have sensed it. Sensed the ambush. In a split second, bullets were
flying everywhere. I almost missed it. My family was taken from me, gunned down like
animals right in front of my eyes. I have never felt so horrified. I saw where my son’s
face used to be, my daughter with a look of terror in her eyes. And my wife, she didn’t
even see it coming. Then I got hit by a bullet. I’ve been through worse. I woke up in the
hospital the next day, in shambles. My family is dead and I am alive. So I left the
hospital and decided something that would change my life forever. I would track down
the people that took my family from me and I would punish them. I would punish any
criminal that walked away unscathed by justice. I would make it my duty and my
responsibility to eliminate those people. That was twenty years ago. I stand out in front
of my old and abandoned home for the first time in forever. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.
I’m sorry and maybe one day, I might be able to forgive myself for letting them take you
away from me. I guess I am writing this letter to no one, to try and remember our lives
together.
I miss you guys.