I dream of dying, often in a thousand ways. None are the same. When I wake up and see the burning sunrise through the trees and hear the faraway songs of birds, I know I’m alive again. In that moment, nothing else matters.
Above, the clear night sky shimmers with stars as desert heat surrenders to the wind and sand. The sounds of artillery flashes are out of sync and the Milky Way gives no bother to the rendering of the earth into flame and oily smoke. There is a brilliant flash that blinds me, the crack of explosion is so hard it feels like being struck by a meteor. I am flying through the air and land in an antitank ditch. Deaf and blind, pain sears my mind and somewhere in the distant past, I hear my own moans. I think if I can cry, I’ll feel better. We have a warrior code that demands silent suffering because pain and panic are contagious. I lay still and quiet in complete darkness.
Now I’m flying above a rocky river with walls of bitter stone and scrub. The Blackhawk doors are open and cold air finds every unguarded opening in my uniform. I want desperately to shiver and rub my numb hands. Instead, I keep my hands on the weapon raining down certain death on unfriendliness below. I see them down there scrambling to hide behind cover. The tiny flash of rifles look like fireflies. I return fire and give instructions to the pilot. My squad can do nothing but hold on. The sound of gravel on glass comes through my headphones between the staccato blast of the weapon. We are falling now. Gravity and the force of our tumble leaves us helpless.
I awaken in the frantic grip of others. A female voice says to someone near, “You take this. I’m not touching this one.” I realize, I am not what I think I am to others. I am broken and only the ones who will live to fight again are saved.
In my dreams when I am dying, it is my past that dreams of living. I am existing and nothing else matters. I am at the hospital. Drugs that give me will to not care allow me to passively observe as the humming machine slices me into tiny pictures for doctors to ponder. I feel my body letting go. Again I have retreated to that place where I am deaf and blind, but I hear my last breathe rattle in the back of my throat and I am thrown on a gurney where my world once again goes black and still. The absence of everything is the heaven I seek, the peace that eludes me when I awaken.
Depression, confusion, pain overtake me but one nurse will not let me go. She swears an oath to herself and a promise to me. She will teach me how to live again. She knows that living is hell and suicide is a gift from God. It is explained in many ways, I must atone for my sins and face the reckoning with life and death. She saves me and I can never forget her face although I have long sworn never to call her name.
When I dream of dying, I embrace the recollection without fear. I do not fear death and this allows me not to fear life. It was fear that made every decision before. Now, when I awaken and the memory of my dreams fade, I know that I am alive again and nothing else matters.
Hyperion Sky 
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