In a deep, deep sleep
Of the innocent
I am born again
I stepped off the plane, and the terminal was crowded. This, back in the days when you could still greet people at the gate, back in the days before fear and caution ruled the land. One by one we each returned to our worlds, almost not realizing that they had continued while we were gone. I scanned the crowd but could not find mine. Full families were there; brothers, sisters, cousins, grandparents; some with signs and balloons. You'd have thought we had just returned from a mission of national liberation, but our trip had been much different. Rather than fighting to guard and protect a system of beliefs and values - the status quo, we let go of all our previous notions of what we had believed to be true and sacred. Not because we wanted to, but because there was no other option.
I kept looking for my family, getting nudged through the gate area by butts and elbows as the others were getting showered with hugs, handshakes, and high fives. I stood off to the side already feeling overwhelmed, backing myself into a corner, cowering. I shook my head and tears welled up in my eyes. I wanted to retreat, to go backwards, rewind, go back. It was too late. As I turned to leave this ever discomforting scene behind, my own world came crashing back to me. My mother crying and my father with a look a disbelief. My hair not cut in over a month, more tan that an Irishman has ever been, six stitches behind my ear, and thirty pounds lighter.
I'm amazed that I survived.
In the days and weeks that followed, as my appearance returned to normal, my eyesight did not. I could see perfectly fine, but nothing looked the same. And it wasn't just my eyes that were giving me trouble. Everything tasted bitter or bland, smells barely registered a memory, and my sense of touch was gone. I could not feel, or maybe I felt too much. Whatever it was sent my body into a state shock. It shut down and couldn't function.
Please, could you stop the noise. I'm trying to get some rest.
I spent hours in my room day and night staring at the clock, and I cried. I cried because their world would never change, and the memory of what took place at any minute of the day would be forever etched into my memory. 6:47am - roosters crowed in the yard with the gentle scraping of a broom dusting off the stones and concrete. The smell of fresh coffee. 3:12pm - Bodies, sprawled out on the concrete floor, gathered in front of the fan. No one moved. A radio softly played. Heat billowed down from the tin roof. Flies buzzed in the kitchen. Outside, animals gathered in the shade. 9:27pm – The family gathered on the porch to share with each other in silence or with stories told. In the distance a silence echoed only recognizable to a foreigner. No echo of a far off freeway, no clamor from the television, no blare from the radio. Only the buzz of a mosquito in your ear or crickets talking back and forth in rhyme. The immensity of the silence was humbling and the blanket of stars let you know how small you are.
Minute by minute, hour by hour I shut myself off from the world I had returned to. Day by day, week by week I decided that I wanted none of it, longing simply to return to a world where only what was necessary was needed.
Rain down
Come on rain down
On me
From a great height
(to be continued?)
