Introduction |Peaking Through the Lines of Confusion
It was about twenty years past since Lieutenant Andrew Hawthorne found himself standing and looking out a barred window on the third floor of St. Joseph’s Vietnam Memorial Hospital.
Authorities had removed him from the streets for a couple “misunderstandings,” according to Drew (a nickname taken on during his high school years by his buddies), and after a few overnighters at the jailhouse and a couple men’s shelter house boots, throughout the years, he ended up housed with the criminally insane. No one seemed to understand his mission. No one seemed to understand that he needed to find Angelica, and go back to chasing his dreams….
Many memories passed through his mind daily, as he gazed out of that caged peak hole, to life. It was not an unusual occurrence for him, because every day was like yesterday, and unfortunately the tomorrows to come. The wretchedness of his surroundings and undesirable solitude was too much for his weakened mind and state of being. There was nothing left for Lieutenant Hawthorne to focus on, but the unending movies that reeled within his mind. Day after day, hour by hour, minute by minute- time was only but a curse to him. Every ticking of the clock gave awareness of the hauntings in his mind. Visions and flashbacks invade his thoughts in continued circles- discontented and uncontrollable, as they make their rotations over and over like a nightmarish carousel ride, at a backwoods county fair.
His screws were coming loose, he was falling apart, and he done lost his marbles somewhere on a trail in the jungles, of Vietnam.
After returning from the war, Lieutenant Hawthorne wandered the streets, searching for Angelica, the love of his life; only to hit roadblocks of hatred, spitting, and falling judgment- like the raining of fire from within the depths of Vietnam. Post war trauma, and the confusion which stemmed from the treatment he and his comrades received, after returning home from war, birthed itself into a vagabond of a man. He was never settled, he was just uncertain, gripping his brown paper bag. It was the only substance he could feel physically, as he held onto the only thing covering the realities of what he thought was his sanity. He also felt warmed, as the devil’s liquid poured its deceptive heat inside of him, into the depths of his soul. The more he drank, the farther he felt himself drifting away, wandering into the unknown. He staggered, in search of what he seemed he could never find, his beloved Angelica, and death, which the war refused to grace him with.
Andrew had an exhausting desire for peace, which was yet to be found. The war had not only taken his peace; the war was now within his mind. So, it was there, at the window of continuing remembrance and lifelessness, he remained tortured. He wanted nothing else but to dwell underground with a memorial tombstone, instead of his current dwelling within walls and screams of St. Joseph’s Memorial Hospital’s psychiatric ward. Pride can at least be an observable honor, of testimonial words, of a man who gave himself for his country, whom he served well. Most of all, a perceived honor from the woman he loved, then lost, his dearest Angelica….
Please return for the next chapter in, Deadly Remembrance
*positive feedback, constructive criticism and comments are welcome with open arms; I am always learning and improving.
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