Awaken

“So forever in the future,

Shall I battle as of yore,

Dying to be born a fighter,

But to die again, once more.”

-Gen. George S. Patton

“Awaken”

He awoke with a start, sitting straight up in bed, heart pounding, small beads of sweat forming on his forehead. The sheets from his twin-sized bed had been thrown to ground in his sleep, leaving him sitting there in just his boxers. When this first started happening he would always look at the time right away, trying to calculate how it would take him to get back to sleep, but by now he already knew it was futile, he was not going back to sleep.

He stood up from his bed and began what had become a ritual, an attempt to chase the demons away; he went into the bathroom of his small efficiency apartment and washed his face, splashing the cool water on his face helped to fully bring him back to the waking world. It had been six months, and the nightmares had started almost as soon as he returned home from Iraq. He was fine the first few nights, visiting and catching up with family and old friends, getting reacquainted with the world that he had left behind.

He stayed there for a minute, leaning slightly forward with his palms resting on the edge of the sink, looking at the mirror in to his own brown eyes. Was he going crazy? It the nightmares that was bothering him, it was what he was having nightmares about. At first it was the “normal” kind of nightmares that soldiers returning home from combat had been experiencing; memories of fallen brothers, fire fights, the concussion of explosions reverberating through his body, the buzzing of AK-47 rounds flying just inches from his head. But recently, the past month or so, it’s hard to remember exactly when, the nightmares had changed.

His nightmares had started being of battles long past; soldiers fighting through Nazi occupied France, Apaches fighting off white settlers, Conquistadors battling Aztec Jaguars. It seemed that each time he went further back in history, to different regions of the world. The VA had sent him to see a therapist, Caroline; she had insisted that he call her Caroline at their first session to make him feel more at home. He had told Caroline about the visions, but she could only tell him that different people have different ways of dealing with the stress. He felt that there was more to it than that, either he truly was losing his mind or something was trying to tell him something.

He finally looked away from other man staring at him from the mirror and slowly shook his head back and forth, a couple of water drops falling off his chin and in to the sink. He continued his usual routine, brushing his teeth and shaving his face. He eventually looked at the clock next to his bed, 5:20 am, might as well start getting dressed. Next to bed on the floor was the pair of jeans he wore yesterday, he slid them on and checked the back to pocket to make sure he wallet hadn’t fallen out. He did a small semi-circle looking at the ground for the socks he had discarded the night before, right next to his boots. He slid the green wool military issue socks on to his feet and pulled them up to his calves then put on his tan combat boots, laced them then tucked the ends in to the tops of the boots. These were broken in and familiar, the only other footwear he owned was a pair of black and white running shoes that had about a thousand miles on them and a nicer pair of heavy black motorcycle boots like the kind Marlon Brando wore in “The Wild One.” As he glanced at them he briefly recalled that they were the first thing he bought when he got out of Basic Training, he usually saved them for when we went out. He put on some deodorant, and then found a t-shirt, just plain black, kind of loose; he didn’t like a bunch of writing on his clothes.

As he looked at the clock again, he realized that the gym a few blocks away would be open in about a half-hour, a good workout always helped to clear his mind. So he grabbed his gym bag stuffed a towel, his workout clothes, running shoes, his hand wraps and mp3 player and headphones in the bag. Before leaving, he went to his bed-side table and grabbed his folding knife and put it in his right hip pocket. He then slid open the drawer of the table and retrieved his Glock 36 pistol, made sure it was loaded then put the gun in its holster and clipped it inside the waistband of his jeans on his right side. The pistol was small enough that it would go unnoticed even under a t-shirt. “Let a man never stir on his road a step without his weapons of war,” he remembered reading in some book a long time ago. He had forgotten the name of the book, but that saying always stuck with him, his time serving had cementing that idea in his mind. He didn’t have a cell phone, just a regular old wall-mounted phone. He figured he didn’t need one since he spent most of his time at home anyway. Once he was sure he had everything he grabbed his keys and headed out.

He could take his car, but the gym was not even a ten minute walk away, no need to use the gas and the walk would to finish waking him up. As he walked towards the gym, he could make out the sun starting to peek over the horizon.  How many times had he watched the sun come up in Iraq, longing for when he could see he come up back home. It seemed like a long time ago, and much less important now. He passed a few people on the street as he walked, a couple of garbage men, an old woman sweeping her porch, a few early birds waiting at the bus stop on the corner. Although he never quite acknowledged them, he was aware of them, watching through the corners of his eyes any movements they made, if they had objects in their hands. Maybe he was just being paranoid, but it was a habit that kept him alive in other situations.

A few minutes later he entered the gym through the double glass doors in front. The guy that usually works front desk in the morning was there, Jesse, recognized him from the other times he had come in early.

“Hitting it early, sir?” Jesse asked

“Yup” he replied rather succinctly, not in a mood to talk.

“Alright, have a good workout, sir.” Jesse said as he went back to the sports magazine he had been reading.

He headed straight to the locker room and went to his usual locker. The key for the lock was on his key ring; he separated it out from the rest of the keys and opened the locker door. He briefly looked over both of his shoulders to make sure he was alone. When he was confident that no one else was in the locker room with him, he removed the pistol from his waist band and placed it on the small shelf on the top portion of the locker that was normally meant for soap and shampoo.  He then changed into his workout clothes, leaving his street clothes hanging up in the locker. He put his headphones on and started his usual playlist on his mp3 player, hard rock, then grabbed the gym bag which still held his towel and hand wraps then headed to the free weights.

After about a half hour of squats, bench press and push presses he had worked up a good sweat, he was breathing hard and most of the muscles in his body were burning. He retrieved the hand wraps and started methodically wrapping them around his hands, making sure they were snug enough to give the protection and support they were meant to, but not so tight that they cut off circulation. Once he was satisfied with the wrap, he headed over to the large room that housed the three heavy bags. There wouldn’t be any classes going on until a little later in the morning, so he had the room all to himself.

As he faced the bag with his arms at his side, he took deep breath then assumed a fighting position, his hands up, feet staggered. Then he slowly started working the bag with straight jabs, throwing in kicks here and there. As the intensity and quickness of his strikes increased, memories of the nightmares he had been having started flashing in his eyes. He tried to ignore them and hit the bag even harder, but that just made the visions more intense. Before he knew it, the room around him and been replaced by some ancient battlefield full of men dressed in chainmail fighting and killing each other and the heavy bag had morphed into a bearded warrior in a full chainmail suit and sword charging straight for him. Out of pure instinct he moved his arms up to block the incoming sword and was surprised to find that he also had a sword. As the other man struck, he fell back and felt the slick grass under him, the weight of chainmail vest land on his chest, as his head hit the ground he realized that he was wearing some sort of helmet. He looked up just in time to see an axe coming down on him.

Just as the axe was about to make contact he instantly found himself back in the gym in front of the heavy bag as if nothing had happened. He franticly looked around, placed his right hand on his face to make that he was truly here and not stuck in the middle of another nightmare. He quickly started unraveling the hand wraps as he walked towards the locker room. A few more people had arrived while he had had his episode, but everyone was quietly going about their routines, not seeming to have noticed anything that had just happened. In the shower he closed his eyes and let the hot water flow down over his head and face. “That was new,” he thought to himself “now I’m hallucinating in the middle of a workout, I really am going crazy.”

Once he finished showering, dried off and got back in to his street clothes, he left the gym and quickly walked back to his apartment. As soon has he got there he locked the door behind him, and then went to a small pile of papers on counter in the kitchenette. He rifled through them a bit until he found the paper that had the number of the therapist that the VA had assigned to him, Caroline. He never did call to schedule a second appointment, now might be as good a time as any, he didn’t much care for shrinks, but didn’t know who else he could talk that might have any idea what was going on with him. It was a little after 7 am so she might be in her office by now, if not he would just leave a message. He went to the phone that was mounted on the wall by the fridge and dialed the number. He expected a pre-recording or some bored sounding secretary, but was somewhat relieved when he heard Caroline’s voice on the other end. She answered after a couple of rings. She remembered him from their last session. She said that it was his lucky day, one of her clients had rescheduled to another date so she had an open slot later on in the afternoon at 1 pm.

He had several hours until then; he should be able to keep from totally going off the deep end until then, so he decided he should try to relax. He sat on the couch that was a few feet from his bed and picked up the TV remote from the coffee table that sat in front of the couch and turned on the TV that sat on top of the dresser. He put on the morning news and in the middle of the weather report was when he first took notice of the grumbling in his stomach. With everything else going on in his head, he hadn’t eaten anything yet. He got up and went to the fridge to see what he had on hand. Some orange juice and a half a pack of bacon, it was his luck day, indeed. As he cooked the bacon on the stove he listened to the man on the TV talk about the latest bombings and murders and atrocities, how bad the economy is and which feckless celebrities were screwing each other. It all made him a little angry inside, how bad it had gotten. He wondered how we had let it get to this point. He wondered if one man could truly make a difference in this world anymore, with everything going so fast and everyone only worrying about themselves. He felt old, being in his late 20’s he felt older than he truly was. They say that war aged you.

 He sat back down on the couch with his plate of bacon and glass of orange juice. He took a bite of bacon and a swig of OJ while watching a supermodel try to convince him to buy the latest sweat-shop assembled designer clothes. Before he knew it, he had fallen asleep on the couch with the TV going. As he slept he slipped into another one of dreams. This time he felt that he was on horseback, he looked down at his hands, silk gloves. He could that we was wearing armor again, but not the same kind as his last dream, the armor felt lighter and didn’t make that same chink-chink noise that chain mail did when you moved around. Suddenly another man on horseback rode several feet in front of him, decked out in full samurai armor. “Ok, I’m a samurai now,” he thought to himself as the other samurai became to speak loudly. The man was speaking Japanese, he knew that much, and he also knew that he didn’t speak a lick of Japanese, but he understood every word that the samurai was saying. He then looked behind him and realized that he was at the front of an army of mounted samurai. The samurai speaking to them must be their commander; he was giving a speech about crushing their enemies and tales being written about them for centuries and their ancestors waiting for them in paradise. Each man then drew their katanas and let out a rousing war cry. Caught up in the fervor, he drew his own sword and let out a war cry, it was cathartic, almost orgasmic. He could feel himself smiling under the facemask as the army charged up a hill straight towards a rival samurai army.

Just as the two armies were about to clash he woke up still on his couch. His heart was pounding as if he has just got done running. The bacon had become cold and the OJ had become warm, he would have to throw them out. He went into the bathroom and washed his face. After drying his face he came in to the living room and looked up at the clock and realized it was almost noon. He went down to the parking lot; his car, an old black Crown Victoria, was parked in the space allotted for his apartment. He got in his car and exited the parking lot. Caroline’s office was about a half hour away, so he had some time to get some fast food at a drive through. He didn’t like getting fast food, but he didn’t finish his bacon and stomach was rumbling loudly.

By the time he got to Caroline’s office, he had finished eating the burger and fries that he had picked up and was finishing off the root beer that he had ordered with it. The clock on his car radio said it was 12:55 pm. He was right on time, so he parked his car and headed into the small house that had been converted into a therapist’s office. Caroline worked with two other psychologists in the same building. He was five feet, ten inches tall and Caroline was just a couple of inches shorter than him in flats. She had fair skin and brown hair that went down to the middle of her back, the only two times that he has seen her she wore it loose with a gray pant-suit and ivory colored blouse. She was a very attractive woman with a warm smile. She asked him to please come sit on the couch in her office.

As he sat there on her couch, recalling the events of last night and this morning, she gave him her whole attention never interrupting him. At first she was writing on her notepad but as soon as started telling her about the “waking dreams” she put her pen down and was transfixed. It wasn’t concern that he saw in her eyes, the look that he got from her was like the look that people get when they see some amazing once-in-a-lifetime event occur, like they never expected to see it but now that it is here, they don’t know what to say. When he was done he just looked at her and waited for her to respond. After a long moment, she finally picked her pen back up and began to write something on her notepad. This irritated him somewhat, he needed help and it appeared that this shrink did not have the expertise to do so. He was right, in a way.

After a few seconds of scratching, she ripped off the corner of the paper that she was writing on and handed it to him. As he reached for it she leaned close to him and whispered to him as if there might be people listening, “I can’t help you, but I know someone who can, go to this address and ask for Kassandra, tell no one about this, go tonight.” With that he grabbed the paper and stuffed it into his pocket. She then stood up and escorted him out of her office, “Ok, so see you same time next week, right? You take care,” she said loud and cheerful, as if nothing strange had happened.

Once he left the office and sat in his car he pulled the note out from his jeans pocket. The paper did, in fact, have an address in it. Whatever this was, whoever this Kassanrdra lady is, he deeply hoped that she had answers for him, he don’t what he would do if she doesn’t. From there he drove around the city for a while, slowly heading towards the part of town that the address that Caroline had given him was in. He stopped for a little while at a park and just sat on a bench and listened to the sounds around him: a few children running and playing, the birds nearby on the ground tapping at the ground with their beaks as they attempted to pick up seeds that had been left there. He noticed a deli just down the street from the park and decided to go get a sandwich. After the sandwich he got back in his car and started heading towards the address on the paper.

Once he got there is already past 7pm, the sun had gone down. “Go tonight,” is what Caroline had told him, “ask for Kassandra.” He was parked in a normal looking neighborhood across the street from the house that sat at the aforementioned address. It was a rather normal looking house, one might say plain. The yard was small and kept with a single oak tree in the middle of it. The house was brick and one story. He really did not know what he was expecting, especially since Caroline gave him no other details besides the name and the address. Eventually he exited his car and started walking up to the house, constantly looking left, right, up and down, keeping his eyes open for anything that might give away a trap or ambush. He made it all the way up to the front door without incident. He took a deep breath and lifted his hand to knock.

Before he had a chance to knock the door swung open and in front of him stood perhaps the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She seemed a gypsy, long black locks of hair that seemed to go where they pleased, olive toned skin and dark eyes. Right above her eyes, centered on her forehead was a blue crescent moon, he wasn’t sure if it was painted on or a tattoo. She wore a black spaghetti strapped stop and an airy blue skirt. She quickly examined him and smirked “Well, she didn’t say you were handsome.”

“Excuse me?” was all he could think to say.

“Come in,” she commanded, “I am Kassandra and I may have the answers that you have been looking for.”

“Yes ma’am,” he responded as he stepped in to the house.

The décor of the room he entered was very colorful with scarves and tapestries seeming to hang from everywhere, he imagined that this is what a gypsy cart would have looked like back in the day. She took her seat at a round table that had a table cloth colored like a clear night sky, complete with little stars and moons. In the center of the cloth appeared to be an arrangement of crystals. She motioned with a tilt of her head for him to take the seat across from as she placed a large deck of cards in front of her. Once he sat, she asked him to place his hands on the table in front of him with his palms facing upward, he did so hesitantly. “Don’t worry, soldier,” she said with a smirk, “you won’t be needing that pistol here.” He marveled for a moment at how she might have known about his pistol, He had never told Caroline about it. She knew he was in the military; it’s a safe assumption that he would be carrying like so many ex-military do. She had started to shuffle the deck of cards. “Pick a number,” she said

“Eight,” he replied, perplexed.

“Ma’am?”

“Yes?”

“I think it would only be proper to tell you that I don’t believe in magic or hocus-pocus.”

She smirked again, “That’s quite alright.”

She started laying the cards out I front of her. After she placed a card down she would look at it for a few seconds then place another card down. He could not tell if there was any sort of pattern that she was placing the cards in.

After she was done placing cards down she took a moment to examine the whole scene that she had laid down. “So, warrior, do you believe in reincarnation?”

“To be honest, I’ve never given it much thought.”

“Hmmm”

“What is it?”

“These dreams that you have been having are not dreams, they’re memories.”

“Yes ma’am, from the when I served in Iraq, that kind of how PTSD works.”

She looked at him with one raised eyebrow, apparently not appreciating the sarcasm in his voice.

“No, not just those, the dreams of ancient warriors and battles from history, the memories that you could not possibly have. They are memories of your past lives.”

“Excuse me?”

She takes a deep breath and gathers her thoughts before continuing.

“You are soldier, correct?

“Yes ma’am.”

“As you have been for many lifetimes. Your soul, your essence, has traveled through many lives, always being a warrior. The ancient Norse had a name for this, they called them the Einherjar.”

“Eyeherherr?”

“Einherjar, they were Odin’s chosen warriors, who died bravely in battle and were rewarded with immortality and lived in Valhalla where they trained endlessly for the final battle known as Ragnarok.”

“Ma’am, I’m not a Viking.”

“But you have had visions of being one, yes? The Einherjar are a metaphor, a symbol, for what some believe to be special souls of reincarnate as warriors over and over again, gaining new knowledge and experience with each battle, each death, preparing to fight in the final battle against the forces of evil.”

“No offense, ma’am, but this sounds like something out B-movie.”

“It’s real, you know it, and you feel it in you.”

“So what do I do with this? Do I have special powers? Am I destined to save the world? Do you have a cape and some spandex for me?

“Don’t be an ass. You are a mortal man, you can die, but you hidden within you the knowledge and experience of lifetimes of combat, that is why you were able to survive when so many others died.”

He fixed her with a steel-hard gaze at her last comment, “That was not a gift, it is a curse, many good men died over I am no one special to have survived, just dumb luck.”

“You know that is not true.”

“So now what?”

“Now you prepare.”

“Prepare for what?”

“That was the other things that the cards showed me, there is a reason all these memories are starting to bubble up now. It is coming.”

“What is coming?”

“The end, the war that will decide the fate of the world, whether evil will rule or goodness will flourish. That is why you and the other Einherjar are beginning to awaken. You must gather together and prepare.”

“I don’t know any other Einherjar.”

“Yes you, do. Think back, you have crossed paths with several throughout your life, people that seemed to be kindred spirits. Soon your paths will cross again, and then you will know that the time has come. It will not be long. Your burden is sacred and can only be carried by those who have spent thousands of years as warriors. All of our lives are in your hands and the hands of those like you. My blessings go with you.”