I'm Not coming Back

1.

My beautiful girlfriend lay beside me, naked. The full moon cast a silver ribbon of pale light across her delicate, smooth skin, as if gently stroking it. She smelled faintly of salt and something warm, something I almost recognized. Somewhere in the distance music drifted through the air - Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, I think. It doesn’t get more cliché than that, and yet, the moment seemed to welcome it. A whisper of summer slipped in through the open window, cool and weightless, brushing lightly against us. I let my hand wander across her back, tracing slow, unhurried circles, more suggestion than a touch, as if the moment itself might shatter under a touch any heavier. I let my fingers glide down along her spine, all the way to its base, barely grazing her skin. She shivered.

“I love you,” she murmured, eyes closed. For a while, nothing in the world seemed to move. And within this stillness, something in me settled into a quiet, unspoken peace.

2.

I woke drenched in sweat, my body shaking uncontrollably. The pain returned at once - sharp and unyielding – and with it came the same terrible certainty: I could not endure it any longer. The dream of her dissolved almost instantly, consumed by a haze of searing agony that burned in my foot and crept relentlessly through the rest of my body.

Since the clash in Lebanon, I have dreamt of her. Not always every night, but often enough. Each time, she comes to me wearing a different face: Once, it was the medic’s. Once the nurse’s. Once the wide-eyed face of the neighbors’ daughter. And once, the face of my sixth-grade teacher. I always knew it was her beneath the face. No matter whose features she wore, something in me recognized her. With her, everything grew quiet. I felt loved, untouched by pain, unburdened by worry.

Eventually, I wake back into reality. My whole body is in agony. The doctors are still trying to save my foot, but one look at their faces when they come to examine me is enough - I know it’s hopeless. They will have to take it. Burns cover my body. I don’t dare look in the mirror; I’m not sure I want to know what remains. It hardly matters. I can’t move or speak, so even that small horror is beyond my reach.

But what unsettles me most is my memory. Something in it has been damaged. The doctors say it’s a response to the trauma – that most of it will return in time. For now, they say, I need patience, and voices around me to help piece things back together.

I don’t remember much. When I regained consciousness, my parents were there, but it took me a while to recognize them. My squad leader came and sat by my side for hours. He spoke to me about my time in the unit, bringing back memory fragments – some of them good. He also tried, gently, to fill the gaps about that night, during the engagement.

I only remember the roadside bomb - buried beneath the dust – and the explosion as we passed. Everything else, he had to fill in for me. He said that after the explosion, they opened fire on us from a ambush that was prepared ahead. Maybe they knew we were coming. Maybe it was just luck that we passed that way – he didn’t know.

Slowly, the voices returned – the screams of the wounded, blood-chilling, inhuman. I had never heard anything like them. Above us, helicopters churned the air, their rotors pounding in relentless, suffocating rhythm. Artillery shells rained down around us, tearing the ground apart, hurling debris in every direction.

God. What hell. I couldn’t blame myself for forgetting.

Somewhere between the waves of unconsciousness, through the drugged haze, she appeared. I don’t know how my mind conjured her. As far as I can remember, there was no one before the engagement. And yet her presence - even if imagined – is the only thing keeping me sane.

I can’t think. I can’t talk. I can’t do anything – the pain consumes everything.

And once again, I drifted back into sleep.

3.

I sat in a beach chair on the deck of a yacht. The sea lay calm around me, the water smooth as glass. My upper body was bare, muscular and tanned. My legs – both of them - were strong and whole. I felt a light touch on my shoulder and turned.

She was there. This time, she wasn’t wearing someone else’s face. It was a face I didn’t recognize – yet somehow, it felt like the truest one.

She was beautiful.

There was a soft, warm scent about her, something I almost remembered.

I smiled at her. She stepped closer and slipped her arms around my neck, drawing me gently toward her.

“Do you love me?” she asked. Before I could answer, she drew me into a deep, lingering kiss. I nodded, and her hand came to rest against my chest.

The sun shone bright – warm and beautiful.

The sea lay still, its surface barely stirring, lapping softly against the hull.

The air was rich with the scent of salt – clean and fresh.

“Come with me,” she said.

I wanted to ask where, but I couldn’t speak. “Stay with me,” she whispered. “Stay with me forever. Don’t go back. Please… don’t go back there…”

The air trembled – helicopters overhead, gunfire, the wounded crying out. She began to fade before my eyes, and my body convulsed with waves of unbearable pain. I clung to her, desperate, refusing to let her slip away.

“Don’t leave me. Come with me, now!” she begged.

I tried to speak. Sweat poured from my body. I forced my eyes open for a moment. Two doctors and a nurse loomed above me, working in urgent silence. Machines beeped all around me, tubes threading in and out of my body.

I opened my mouth.

“I’m not coming back,” I rasped.

The nurse turned toward me, startled.

“I’m not coming back!” I shouted, forcing the words out with what little breath I had left.

I closed my eyes. She was there, smiling. Her figure no longer faded – it sharpened, becoming real. Something pulled at, dragging me away from her. I tightened my hold on her, with all the strength I could muster. She caught me and pulled me with her, farther and farther away.

“I’m not going back… not going back,” I murmured as we drifted away - from the sweaty bed, from the monitors, far from the doctors.

“I’m not going back,” I said for the last time.

And somewhere above me, a long, undisturbed beep filled the air.