Melanie Rasch is a student, a writer, and an athlete. She goes to Gustavus Adolphus College in the middle of nowhere Minnesota, where she is acquiring her BA in English and a funny accent where her o’s seem to be longer and everything ends in ‘eh’? She has been previously published in the on-campus feminist literary magazine, Heterodoxy, and she has worked as an art and poetry editor assistant in the Gustavus literary magazine, Firethorne. Born in Korea and raised in a bunch of different Midwest cities, Melanie resides in Cincinnati with her parents and little brother when she’s not in school.

Fighting Nightmares (June 20, 2010. Issue 18.)

There is a sublimity to silence. He was crouched down rifle ready and loaded. He didn’t know what was wrong but there was an odd twitch in the back of his neck, but he chocked that up to being adrenaline. Soon, the world explode into chaos, but now… now there is only silence. The birds aren’t twittering, the trees aren’t swaying: there is no sound. Silence, beautiful silence. The man heard a crack of twig. What was that? He hadn’t given the signal for any of his men to move. All of a sudden, the silence was shattered by the sound of machine guns. What the fuck? How the hell did they find them? He had to get his men out of here, something was horribly wrong….

It was the screaming that woke me up for the third time this week. I jerked awake and turned on the lamp.

“Derek,” I said urgently to the man thrashing and shouting next to me. “Derek, it’s just a dream.” I almost reached for him but jerked my hand back.
Although he was vulnerable now, the instant he was awake he turned into the soldier he had trained years to be.

“Derek,” I said, a little more loudly.

He jerked awake. The next instant he was on to the ground in a crouched position. He was ready to battle any enemy, his eyes scanning the room for the potential threat.

“Sweetie,” I said, trying to sound calm and soothing. “It’s ok, you’re home, and you’re safe.” I moved my shaky hands up slowly-like the surrender position, showing him I wasn’t a threat. Sweat and adrenaline was pouring off of him, and the rabid look in his eyes began to fade.

“Calixta… Oh god, did I hurt you?” He asked, climbing on the bed checking me for wounds.

“No, I’m fine,” I said, grabbing his shaking hands and kissing his knuckles.

He let out a sigh and laid down with his back to me, closing his eyes.

“Baby, what do you dream about? Talk to me, please,” I nearly begged. I knew he couldn’t fight this enemy alone and he wouldn’t let me fight it with him. This had been going on since he had gotten out of the hospital two weeks ago.

“No, it’s okay. I’m okay, go back to bed, I’m sorry I woke you again,” Derek said without opening his eyes.

Sighing I turned off the light and snuggled against his back. I felt him flinch at the contact, but he didn’t turn around and my heart hurt all over for him. For us. We were lying in silence in the dark when I begin to desperately try to grasp something worth remembering. Something we could share.

‘I remember,” I said. “When they spelled my name with an ‘S’, instead of an ‘X’, on our wedding cake and how devastated I was that they didn’t have enough time to make a new one. I was so overwrought and stressed over planning a wedding that I just stood there crying. The lady was so worried about me, she called you. I felt so bad for bothering you in the middle of your job that I cried even harder. You grabbed the icing tube, turned the “S” into a heart and put an “X” through it. ‘Cross my heart’, you told me ‘I’ll be yours forever.’ It was cheesy, really cheesy, but I was a wreck the whole day. The ‘X’ was the best part of the whole cake.”

He didn’t say anything, I didn’t expect him to. But I closed my eyes and the next thing I knew it was morning.

His men were going down, one by one. Their bodies riddled with bullets. Oh, God how had this happened? He kept screaming at them, but they were outnumbered. This wasn’t chaos, this was hell. Panic was welling up in him, how had this gone so horribly wrong? He saw Jackson in the distant and he was trying to move with a bullet wound in his shoulder. He ran over to help the fallen soldier but before he could get to him, the earth exploded around him. And then all he knew was blackness.

The next night, the screaming and yelling went on longer than usual. I didn’t bother with the light, I was up already. Derek was crying and yelling “Retreat, retreat! Damn you!” The bed was rocking and shaking so violently, I was almost afraid we would fall through the floor. “No! No! Stop damn you! How did you find us?” His voice began to get hoarse and it wasn’t until he smacked the lamp off the nightstand that he came awake. I began to hum a melody my mother once sang to me and his breathing began to even out a little. He let out a sight and rolled out of bed. He went to the closet and began to put on a running outfit. I sat there, feeling like I was on an isolated desert island.

“There was a time when I resented you for being a better cook,” I said, thinking of the past. “I was the wife, and I know I’m independent and all, but you worked so hard and I always wanted to surprise you once in a while with a delicious home cooked meal. I felt… lacking.” I nearly smacked myself in the forehead. That was not the best story to bring up at this time. But I felt better because I said it.

There was a pause. “You were never lacking,” He told me, still not turning around. “You are my…everything. You gave me something to come back to,” he said as he left to take his run.

I fell asleep holding those words close to my heart, not knowing they could be a double-edged sword.

Things went downhill the next night when I made a mistake and touched him in the throes of nightmare. He was shaking and sweating and screaming so violently that my doctor instincts took over before common sense could. In a blink on an eye, I was on my back with an iron-grip choking me. I tried not to panic, tried to shove him off of me, but he was two hundred and fifty pounds of solid muscle and I was one twenty when I was dripping wet. By the time he realized where he was I was seeing black dots. He let go like he had been stung. Something I couldn’t decipher flashed through his eyes but before I could say anything, he escaped to the kitchen.

I filled my oxygen deprived lungs with air and when I knew I was steady, I went to the kitchen.

Derek was sitting at the table, head in his hands and shoulders hunched. I made my way over to him, the moon shining through the glass door my only guide. I sat down next to him and laid my hand on his back, desperately wanting him in my arms but knowing he would reject that contact.

“I’m so sorry, baby, I should have known that would happen,” he said in a harsh whisper. “I’ll start sleeping in the guest bedroom.”

“Don’t be an idiot; it was my fault.” My voice came out scratchy and I knew he noticed when his muscles tensed up. “I know better than to touch you.”

“God dammit Calixta, I could have killed you! What if I don’t stop in time if it happens again?” He was looking at me now and the wild look was back in his eyes. It was a mixture of panic, pain, and fear.

I tried to think, to get past all the emotions that wanted to burst forth within me. I looked away, needing to collect my thoughts. My gaze landed on the oven and I involuntarily smiled.

“How can you be smiling at a time like this? I hurt you,” he demanded, face ravaged with guilt.

“I was thinking back on the time I tried to make pancakes.” I saw confusion on his face but continued on. “I was doing really well, making your surprise breakfast, until I tried to flip one and it landed on the ceiling. While I was on the counter trying to scrape it off, the two in the pan caught on fire. The fire alarm was going off and the phone was ringing. I was so disoriented, frustrated and scared, I shook my spatula in the air and swore to the cooking god I would never cook again. When the firemen got here, the embarrassment quickly vanished when I thought I would drown in testosterone. I swear, if it didn’t shoo them out the door you guys would have been taking off your shirts and comparing your six packs. Who would have thought pancakes would be so hard to make?” I laughed at the memory.

For a second, some of the tension left his shoulders but it didn’t go away. “That is not as bad as when I was with my troops. I found Danny-boy and Peabody holding up a branch and trying to measuring their di- uhh… male pieces… trying to discover which one was bigger,” he said, with a suspicious twitch of his lip.

“Yeah, and what happened to them? Who won?” It gave me hope that he was opening up a little.

But the hope was quickly destroyed when the blank look came on his face. “They died.” With those soul-destroying words said, he made his way to the guest room.

Days turned into weeks and our home was filled with a polite tension. We were trying to maneuver through our lives with an elephant in the room. Derek went off to work at the base and I went to the hospital. The other day my friend and fellow doctor, Lisa came up to me. She had a concerned look on her face.

“Callie,” she said. “What’s going on? I see you here at the hospital so much I could swear that you live here. It’s something going on at home?”

“No, nothing’s wrong, we’re just a little strapped for cash right now and I’m just trying to help with it.” I forced a smile on my face that Lisa could easily see through.

“Sweety,” she said. “Is it Derek? Is he having some difficulties? I have a friend he could talk to.”

“Thanks Lisa, but I doubt it. And it really isn’t that bad. He just has some dreams, that’s all.” Dreams, hah. Kind of like how the Sahara is a little bit of sand.

“If you need anything you know you can come to me, right?” she gave me a cheeky grin. “Maybe you should go back to the studio. It is a good stress reliever and you can pretend the pad is Derek and just wail on it.”

I laughed, but an idea began to form.

We were sitting down in our home about to Chinese eat take-out food when something real finally happened. Derek was staring at his food but wasn’t seeing it. I was afraid he was having a flashback but he said, “Do you remember when we first met?”

“College years, we were both sophomores,” I said scooping a huge portion of the lo-mein onto my plate. I had accidently skipped lunch.

“True but the first time I saw you was when you were staring at the campus map freshman year. You looked kind of geeky but gorgeous at the same time. You had your backpack on your back and the most confused look on your face. After a few minutes you figured it out and the biggest and brightest smile I had ever seen lit up your face. It was the most surreal sight.”

I blushed, not ever knowing this.

“It took me forever to get up the nerve to ask you out. I would get all sorts of crap from the guys about my ‘perfect girl’, but I didn’t mind because what they said was true. You were perfect.”

I scoffed at that, “I’m far from perfect. I’m grumpy in the morning; I let my mouth get the better of me sometimes; I have a fierce temper…” I could have gone on but he just shook his head.

“When I was in Ir- when I was there, in the middle of chaos, we needed something to keep us sane, something to hold onto. For me, it was that smile and the knowledge you were far from all of that. That you were waiting for me,” he said, looking off to the distance.

“Derek…” I replied carefully. “My friend Lisa knows a really good psychiatrist. Maybe you should give her a call. I have her phone number in my purse…”

His head snapped back as if I had slapped him and he looked me in the eye. Flashes of impatience and anger floated across his face. “Look I’m handling it. If you’re so goddamn sick of not sleeping than maybe you should look into a divorce,” he sneered as he shoved back from the table and threw the dishes in the sink. I heard him go up the stairs and into the guest bedroom. Drawers were being opened and knew he was going out again.

“What do you want from me Derek?” I asked to the empty air around me, hearing the resignation in my voice. I just sat there, with my lo-mein untouched and listen to the front door open and close.

That night, I couldn’t fall asleep with the frustration eating away at me. I slammed my hands in the pillow and growled my rage. Fine, I’m done. No more Mrs. Nice Gal. I had been thinking about what Lisa told me and she was right. But instead of pummeling the pad and pretending its Derek, it’s going to actually be him.

I couldn’t sleep that night, the adrenaline was pouring off of me for a change. When the nightmare reared its ugly head, I sat by him, hummed the lullaby again. I prayed with all my worth that this would work. That I would get back my husband.

“Where are we going?” Derek said for the ninth time. I ignored him and kept driving. We were almost there. It took most of the morning to prepare for this. I asked a favor from a friend of mine that owns his own studio. He agreed to help me and said he would leave the equipment behind the counter for us. Five minutes later, we got to our destination.

“What the hell are we doing here?” he demanded.

“Shut up,” I said, at my wits end. “Just shut. Up. Do you want to try to save this marriage?” I asked hotly, adrenaline began to poor into my system. Without waiting for an answer I got out of the SUV and stomped towards the karate studio’s entrance. Flinging the door open I turned on the lights. The front of the studio was more the business area, where the t-shirts and books and weapons were sold. The back was a big matted area for the classes. I heard the bells over the door jingle as I was getting on the borrowed gear.

“Here,” I said tossing him a bag of sparring gear. “Put this on.”

He looked inside, and handed it back to me. “No, I’m not going to do this.”

“Put it on, or I’m going to take your advice and ask for a divorce,” I lied, strapping on the helmet.

His eyes widened and his face paled a little. He began to put the equipment on slowly and was almost finished by the time I was ready to go.

“Calixta, what are we doing?”

“Sparring,” I said bouncing up and down warming up my muscles. When I was ready I put in my mouth guard.

“You haven’t done martial for months,” he said.

“It’ll be like riding a bike. I need to prove something to you obviously. You are so selfish,” I said taking a swing at him, which he evaded with cat-like grace. I knew there was no way in hell I was going to beat him, but kicking his ass for a little while might be fun. He needed some sense knocked into him.

“That is not true, I’ve been doing this for you,” he said as he dodged my round-house kick. “I want to protect you.”

“Bullshit,” I said, finally getting in a hit to the solar plexus. It felt like hitting a wall. He probably didn’t even feel it but it felt good to me.

“You won’t talk to me.” –Punch- “You won’t talk to a shrink.” -Punch, punch- “You won’t talk to anyone.” –Front kick- Every attack I executed, he was able to block, which made me step it up even more. I finally got a shot in.

After the last word I just let it loose on him. The adrenaline, the pent up emotions, everything just came out. I knew he could handle my attempts at sparring; it was probably more like swatting flies away for him. But he didn’t hit back.

“Hit me, fight back,” I cried, my chest heaving for air.

“No, I’ve hurt you enough and I’ve done enough fighting,” he said with his arms still in the defensive position. “We’ll figure this out. I love yo-”

“Shut up and hit me!” I demanded still bouncing up and down though my energy was waning. I couldn’t be swayed by pretty words no matter how much I wanted to. I couldn’t bounce up and down anymore, but I was still mad enough to swing at his big head.

He might have been getting impatient with me or maybe I hit him one too many times, but he finally, with blurring speed, swept my feet out from under me, making me land on my back. The move was unexpected and I was so busy ranting at him that I didn’t realize what was coming. Suddenly, I remembered I forgot the first rules of sparring: Don’t let your guard down. Too late. The wind was knocked out of me and I just laid there for a couple of seconds. Or maybe a couple minutes.

“Callie? Oh, god,” He said urgently. “Are you ok?” He knelt down beside me to inspect me. “I knew I would hurt you again,” he said mournfully.

“I’m fine,” I said, shoving him away as I began to stand up.

“Maybe we should stop and go hom-“ Before he finished his sentence I felt a second wind and swung again at his face. He reacted a second before the punch could connect. I felt a little bit satisfied when I saw the look of astonishment on his face, but then became wary when determination replaced it. I knew I had won, but I was going to lose the physical match.

After about half an hour, I was on my back, helmet and gloves of, gasping for breath. My annoying husband sitting next to me didn’t even look winded.

“Damn,” I said, feeling the aches all ready. “I’m sooo going to feel this tomorrow. I should of ran with you than I might be in better shape.” I looked towards him as he was staring at the wall.

“Remember that time two years ago when- “I began, looking up at the ceiling watching the light on the ceiling flicker.

“No,” he said quietly, looking at the mat. He helped me sit up and pulled me into his lap. I tucked my sweaty head under his chin knowing this was it, the turning point, the make or break moment. “It’s my turn,” he said quietly.

He began slowly. “Four months ago,” he began. “God has it been four months? It feels like yesterday.” He paused. “We… my men, no that seems so shallow. They were my brothers. We were behind enemy line… and I did something stupid.” Tears began to fall. “I trusted the wrong person, a source I should have investigated further. And everyone, everyone died but me. God, Callie, I just wanted to die with them. I killed them.” A harsh sob came out of him and I wrapped my arms around his neck, trying to comfort both of us. “I was trying to get to Jackson when a bomb exploded in front of me. In the darkness I thought, thank god, I’m going with them. But I kept seeing your face, and a part of me knew I couldn’t leave you, couldn’t hurt you like that. You saved me.”

Sobbing, I cried, “It wasn’t your fault. You tried to protect them, it was that bastard who betrayed you who is at fault.”

Silence descended on us.

“Tell me about them,” I said quietly. “Tell me of the men who fought by your side.”

I thought I had asked too much, but he began to talk… and talk. He talked about Jackson who was a heart breaker but secretly was searching for his soul mate. He talked about Peabody who was the only virgin on the team and who found multiple prostitutes in his bed that the other guys bought for him. He talked about Caleb who had a wonderful wife and a cute nine year old child. On and on the list went, nineteen men total my husband knew almost as well as he knew me.

But that night, after the nightmare, he held me in his arms as we fell back asleep.