Sleep

I cannot sleep. Not that there is anything new about it. It has been like this since I returned from the war. That is more than 34 years ago.

Maybe I should have done what my mother said. Gone for cleansing. Others went. But I did not see any need to. We had been in a war. We had lived sleepless nights. Watching. Vigilant. And the body was used to staying awake.

It would end with time, I told myself. Don’t they say time heals everything?

So I prayed on time to heal me. But 34 years later, time is yet to heal me. In fact, each day seems to bring back everything that happened in the past. I seem to be living my life backwards.

I see all the faces. That blood. I feel the pain. I hear the voices. The pleas. The cries for mothers far away back home. The past has become my future. My present.

Still I regret not doing what my mother had suggested. Maybe I would be sleeping peacefully. Float in dreamless sleep. And be human again.

Or I should have done what my first wife said. Go to church. Confess. Pray. And ask God to make me human again.

I did not go to church. What was the use? Where was God when all those bad things happened? When man turned into beast? When life lost its meaning? Where was he? And would he be there for me now?

After all, I survived the war where we used guns. I have also survived the post-war period. Thirty-four years of playing a game that is more dangerous than a war of guns. And I will survive the next 40 years if need be. By all means necessary. I will survive.

Maybe my second wife was right. That I have no soul. It died in the war. She said I should see a psychologist for help.

I did not because nobody will ever understand what I am going through. Understand why I cannot sleep. Erase the memories. Lighten this sadness.

Even these wolves who want to challenge me for presidency do not understand how it was in the war. I have given half of my life to the war. And now they want to just come and take the presidency from me.

I will not make it easy for them.