Coming home…

I’m not really sure where I was, but it was pretty dark. I was walking through a field of wheat, there was a full moon above me and a slight breeze making the wheat wave back and forth. It felt like I had been walking a long time, my feet were tired and I was pretty dirty, my clothes were dirty and had holes all in them. I was looking around for something, the area felt familiar. After a little more walking, I saw what I was looking for; in the distance I saw lights from the window of a house. I started walking faster and faster, as I got closer, I started sprinting to my long neglected destination. I began to yell out your name, joy in my heart rose as I came closer and closer to the house. The house was older, not falling apart… but it looked like it had been lived in for many years. It was a bigger house. Two stories, had a white porch swing on it with the paint peeling off, showing about how long the man of the house had been away. One of the steps was broken as I walked up to the front door and the others creaked under my weight. I set my bags down when I reached the top of the stairs, looking at my bag, I realized that it was an olive drab army issued duffel bag. This made me realize I must have been away at war. As this realization hit me, memories came flooding back to me in waves. Memories of blood and fighting, people dying all around me. I remember people yelling for the Doc, and I would run to them and see what I could do to save them, or to just make them comfortable as they died. Dwelling on these memories for that brief time, I realize that I am not in a place or time that I’m used to. Our uniforms were grey, the enemies blue. It was the civil war.
Pushing these thoughts out of my head, I put my hand on the door handle of my old house. I open the door and walk in. Things are exactly how I remember them, everything in the exact place it was before I left. The house is clean, and tidy. I look around and call your name, but I hear no answer. I realize how late it must be, thinking you must be asleep.
The wind outside picks up, the light from the moon dims, I hear the faint sound of thunder in the distance. It’s rainy season in Louisiana. I quietly close the door and take my shoes off. I creep up the stairs, trying in futile carefulness to not let the stairs creak as to not wake you. I make it to the top of the stairs and creep over to our room. I slide the door open, seemingly, the only thing in this house that doesn’t need a good oiling.
The room is completely dark, aside from the dim light of an oil lamp left on, on top of the night stand. I make my way to the lamp and lengthen the quick a little to shed more light on my destination. Outside the window to the left of the bed, lightning flashes. That moment, as I’m looking at the bed and the flash from god illuminates the room for a split second is a picture that I know will be burned into my mind for the rest of my life.