I remembered it too once the fog of dreams began to lift. I had screamed when I reached the enemy trenches. All the terror and fury of suicide was in that desperate release. And, immediately after, I was thrown by an irresistible force. There was a sharp pain in my head, a wrench in my ankles, and I was scooped as though by some gravitational force into a well of darkness. I tried to recall—because they were so certain of my heroism—what I could possibly have accomplished in the second between that yell and my descent. But no one helped me with that. Just a careful pat on my shoulder, as if they feared too firm a touch would shatter my bones, and, “There, there old man. You’ve done everything that could be expected of you. You’re an inspiration.” It was the glare of the electric light high above my bed that first hauled me up through many layers of nightmare and dream. Voices came and went like trams. The narrow aisles of the ward were streets, sometimes empty, sometimes bustling with life.
