I Am Alone Ch.2

...I am alone.. Nobody understands. I don't believe they ever will. All alone i stand. No one to see. My apartment dark, bedroom darker. a steady stream of my breath hitting the chilled air. The creaking of my door opening. I can hear people throughout the house, opening doors. Looking. Searching. Shot gun at my hip. Loaded, ready to fire. shadows appear under the door. A glimmer of light appears from the window to my right. Backing into the corner, I crouch, the window beside me shatters, bullets rip thru the door like paper. Everything goes black in an instant. Quiet, not a sound. I'm paralyzed and can't move a limb. Sweating profusely, I finally am able to open my eyes after a few moments and see the ceiling.

Two men stand above me. One holds my weapon. As I start to pull thru i notice them arguing with each other. Though I can't make out about what. The two were tall fit men like myself. one with a Special Forces tattoo much like my own. The other with a traditional Naval tattoo. The two white Goalie masked men look at me as I sit up. Looking them dead straight in the eye, knowing who they are...

I jolt myself awake at this startle of this constant, repeating dream.

I wake on the floor aside from my sofa. As I stand up, I notice my couch pushed back aways. Exhausted, from restless nights of sleep. Still tired to the bone, I work my way to the shower.

After getting ready for work, about to head out the door, I notice a small brown package on my apartment steps. I choose to ignore it for a while. Thinking ill have time to look when i get home. 

Trying to drive to work in a deep January snow in northern Minnesota, is like driving in Texas with an inch of snow. Except, up North, they don't shut school down for a week either. I get out of my ‘97 Jeep Cherokee as I pull up to my work. Snow chains sagging on the tires. Brown sludge and snow caked to the underbody and chassis. 'What a Beauty.' I think, looking over in glamour. 

I get into the chair at my desk. A lumber jack wasn't what I had in mind for sufficient work, but it paid the bills, and hired without a college diploma. On the bright side I wasn't in the cold, but behind a desk instead. I am glad i'm not in a corral with wolfs, moose, coyotes and even worse, the cold. The constant music in the work area can be annoying and irritating at times, but todays a certain song comes over the radio just ten minutes into my shift. I go from having a conversation, to dead silent. I reach to turn off the radio. No one turns off the radio in the office, but everyone around me has been there for years. Some of them even at my wedding and still are my only friends. They all know the tragedies, and the sorrows of my marriage.

My marriage was good, while it lasted anyway. My wife and I laughed, joked, and never had to worry about bills, or anything. We had it made. surrounded by family, living in Chester, Iowa, when i wasn't deployed. Only a moment away from the Minnesota border. Nine, happy, joy filled years, and she was then gone, all too soon. Things started getting weird after a while. she had ‘mysterious’ late night phone calls from the office. she started acting diffrent, even started to smell diffrent. I knew without a doubt in my mind, she was seeing another man. After packing a suitcase, and going to a motel for a few nights, ignoring her calls, even though it killed me too do so. She found my pickup at the inn down the road, on the second night. Samantha, banged on my door, waking the whole complex at one in the morning. I answered, the door with a crack. The chain locked drew tight to my chest.

She came to see who I was with. Demanding to know who I was sleeping with. I unchained the door. All too quick I lost patients, and told her I knew she was seeing another man. Seeing someone other than her husband. Samantha, looking shocked, speechlessly turned to walk away. I stood in the door, waiting. Waiting for her to come back and say that it isn't true. Telling me i had it all wrong. She never did. I never saw her, alive, after that night.