by Roving Reporter, ©2022
(Apr. 19, 2022) — “Flight of the Bumblebee” (2:12)
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to ‘The Pulse of the Nation,’ the place to hear it here first. Professor Zorkophsky’s Marriage Counseling Relief Service has really hit a demand for the PTSD-afflicted because, according to him, his phone has been ‘ringing off the hook.’ Is that true, Professor?”
“Some of it.”
“Which part?”
“Well, even though I have a phone I never answer it so I guess not much is true, except my email has seen a marked increase in traffic. A lot of questions.”
“Such as?”
“Most of the questions have to do with the spouse cheating, like ‘I think my wife is cheating; what should I do?’ kind of questions. I tell them to do what I did: pack it up and leave town. I thought my wife was the love of my life, the one person I wanted to spend my life with, but if you can’t trust the one you love, there’s not a heck of a future for the relationship to go except downhill.”
“So, what happened?”
“Well, since I thought she wanted to be with other men that kind-of left me out in the cold, so I filed for a divorce and divorced her, which was, really, the hardest thing I ever did in my life, but, as they say, ‘that’s life.’”
“You still seem, what, bitter about it, don’t you?”
“It’s not like something you can just wash away and be done with it. There’s no use lying to myself; I miss her, but I wasn’t the one who cheated, although my drinking sure as heck didn’t help any, and I accept I was to blame. It was how I survived yet another night doing anything possible not to have another reoccurring nightmare, the exact same one, no variation whatsoever: just like in real life: I was surrounded by a bunch of gooks who wanted me dead but, in my dream, I wake up and I don’t have my weapon; heck, I don’t have any weapon, and why should I? I survived and made it back into the World and I just was shocked into wakefulness for 17 years. And that was my last one, 17 years after I was separated from active duty.”
“How many years did your wife experience you coming out of your nightmares?”
“Eleven years.”
“So, you almost made it.”
“Ain’t that a bummer?”
“So, when did you quit the drugs, the beer and cigarettes?”
“A few years after. I mean, at the time of the last nightmare I didn’t know it was the last one, but I remember the circumstances quite well, thank you very much.”
“So, your life is kind of divided in two, would you say?”
“Not in the way you probably think it. For me, every darn morning it was ‘Do I eat the bullet today?’ kind of existence. Hard to make any long-term plans living with that kind of attitude, let me tell you.”
“I can imagine.”
“But you can’t, not the way it really went down. Think about all our troops who served in Afghanistan: a complete waste and made even more so by the way Biden ran away from it. Disgusting, and it sure didn’t help our guys and gals who got messed up. They need to kick the drugs and find somebody to talk to.”
“You didn’t have anyone to talk to?”
“I was ashamed of myself which prevented me for asking help from my wife, sorry to say. I didn’t even try, and that’s a cross I’ll have to bear until the day I die. PTSD is a devastating disease of the mind: you either eat the bullet or survive; either/or.”
“No grey area?”
“I don’t think so. But I will say this: stay away from the pills that the VA tries to shove down your throat. I was messed-up, but I never was that far gone.”
“So, what’s the cure?”
“There isn’t any but there is a solution: talk about your feelings with somebody, anybody, and I hope it’s your better half, and avoid a life of regret.”
“Good advice and we’ll leave it at that: Goodnight.
“Good show. Burger time: my treat.”
“That’s Life” (3:20)