The Manhunt

When he returned sleep finally became easy again. He was safe. He was back. He was there for me. Quickly sleepless nights returned and despair refilled my heart. He wasn't safe. He wasn't back. I was there for him.

The ocean blue eyes that were once transfixed on mine have greyed and withered like nature in the winter. The cheeks that once blushed pink, have no colour, no life.  The smile that lit up the room can no longer be ignited. The bullet from the gun stripped him of that liberty. Can I strip myself of that liberty and stay with him?

It’s my fault! I should have made him stay! I should never have let him go because now he’s let himself go. Where is our God now? Where is my faith? My prayers for his safety went unanswered and now I have no one to answer to. I need a squadron of men to bring my husband back from the war that rages on in his mind. Through the translucent window of his mind all I see is fire and destruction and death, so much death The deaths he caused. The death he witnessed. The death of his spirit.

Every night when he finally succumbs to the tiredness that festers behind his eyes, I listen. Listen to the heavy breaths that escape his battered lungs. Listen to him whir as the images of war reel through his mind like a film that never ends. Listen to him sob as the nightmares frighten him into consciousness. As the stream of salty tears flow down his perfect face, I pull him close, and holding him in a calming embrace. I reassure him that everything is going to be okay and come morning light safety will ensconce him once more. But my efforts are wasted and tension ripples throughout his muscles. Every night I am locked out of his mind, every night I am locked out of his heart. His ribs prevent me from salvaging what is left of the tattered tomb that beats his chest.

When the night finally ends and the sunlight breaks through the curtains he is hollow as if the pain he felt during the night had cut so deep that he is left numb. But as the day matures I study his face as the horror of war slowly consumes him. I watch helplessly as his throat begins to close and the memories rattle round his broken mind. His body tenses, but he is motionless, frozen in the battlefield of his mind, but his eyes show me the demons that torture him from within.

The man that sits before me is not the man that I fell in love with. The man that sits before me is weak and brittle and cannot withstand his own madness. The man that sits before me isn’t a fit husband. The man that sits before me isn’t fit to be a father. I always wanted children and I don’t want to be wasting my childbearing years looking after the shell of the man I fell in love with. The man I loved. I want to love him with all I have but I can’t. I can’t make my heart feel something it won’t. But how can I leave him? My love for him might have absconded but I will never stop caring for him as long as I shall live. But if I stay what will happen to me? Can I let myself be another helpless victim of war? Can I sacrifice my own happiness in order to care for a man who rejects my help? Can I sacrifice my future for a man who could be lost forever? If I left guilt could consume me the way fear has consumed him. But if I stay his depression could engulf me. But what means more to me loyalty or self respect? Who do I love more, what he has become or who I want to be?

But I made a vow, when I was young and naive to love him until death do us part. Although it means my inevitable demise, I must stay by his side until the end of our married life. Happiness may never be a friend of mine again but I shall love him and be his dutiful wife until the bitter end. He risked his life to protect mine and now I must waste mine in the hope of saving his. I accept that peace may never return to this broken house, this broken marriage, these broken minds. There are no winners in war. War is the worst act of man. War destroys everything in its path. War destroyed my husband. War destroyed my marriage. War destroyed me.