Rages of the Night

"Did 'cha ever think about dying?"I shifted until I was comfortable again on the small boulder. My back felt stiff and my legs hurt from having run so far that day. I stared down at the seven-year old girl sitting at my feet. Her face was dirty and her long, fine, black hair was naturally matted from having been in the open so long. A comb and other toiletries were not available to us on the run.She stared back, twisting a shred of cloth on the skirt of her torn, sooty dress. "Did 'cha ever?' she persisted. "Did 'cha ever think about dying?"This story actually "came to be" years before while I was living in the Philippines. One morning I was in the tiny bathroom trying to get the shower to send out some hot water instead of its usual cold spray when "a voice," a little girl's raw whisper sounded in my head."Did 'cha ever think about dying?"Nothing like this had ever happened before. Frightened, I feared everything from potential brain damage to inexplicable approaching madness, but there was no expert medical help available. Finally I decided to forget the bizarre incident, but the voice persisted. In a last-ditch effort to return to some normalcy I wrote the words down. To my surprise the pen, with me holding it, began to skim, over and over, across the paper, resulting finally in this book. This was followed by odd dreams that occurred, off and on, throughout the years until they finally disappeared.Until now. Now the dreams have come again.I think of this story as "metaphorical fiction." The tale revolves around a young solider during battle and the small enemy child who helps him through his self-made torture. The solider is under the illusion that he is running away from the blood and the pain of a very real war. In reality, such as it is here, he is actually running toward his own inner self, continuously seeking his own answers that will lead him to his own peace. He assumes throughout this scenario that he is a deserter. This is not the truth, even though that is the way he sees it. Instead, this young soldier has been shot during battle and, without knowing or understanding what has happened, he has actually been kind of dumped into a type of personal purgatory that is between life and death. This purgatory, in an instant, becomes his new concrete reality, since, as with all of us, the reality we see around each one of us is simply our own perception of such that makes it so. During his journey here the solider is befriended by an almost surreal and dirty orphan; an enemy child who seems to possess the wisdom of someone far beyond hers or even the soldier's years. This "child" is also seeking her own particular solace, her own journey, her own destiny, by aiding the soldier in his struggle to find the pathway back to the life he once had, to his "other reality." This little girl, in her own dimension, is as real, is as much flesh and blood as anyone. Yet, she is not real, not by our own definition of such. This is a tale of great hatred and deep love. It is an account of enemies and friends. It is a story filled with aching woe and immense joy. It is ultimately, though, a narrative of a search for peace; for the young soldier, for the enemy child, and, in the end, for all of us.