Story of a rant
Apr. 2nd, 2004 10:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
piploverI must beg your indulgence for a moment to explain this story.
It is written as a response to a fanfiction I read, where Merry's wife begs him to tell him of a certain incident, and tells him that there should be no secrets if they are to marry.
Perhaps I see things differently, being a soldier. I am at a post that has just recently returned from the war, and have many friends who suffer from their experiances. Several of them suffer insomnia, and one of them was unable to sleep for a week striaght, to the point of seeing hallucinations.
It is unspoken amongst us that we do not ask them to share their tale. Only those who were there can understand. As soldiers, we know that we, too, are likely to see battle, and may one day face the same terrors that they saw. I myself know that within the next year I will most likely be going to Kuwait or Iraq, and though I dread the thought of leaving my home and friends, it is my duty.
So to have someone persistantly demand an explanation of something they cannot understand - this gets to me on a personal level.
I have experianced things since I have been in that no one can understand unless they were there. I have been so tired that my eyes have crossed trying to keep them open, and though it is a humorouse sight, I'm sure, it is very uncomfortable. And I have had to remain outside in the frigid Korean winter with my rifle ready as I await a possible attack on my home.
I appologise if this offends anyone. That is not the intent, nor is it an attack on the story I mentioned earlier. It is simply something I feel very strongly about, and beg your patience.
If you still want to read this, please tell me what you think.
Thank you, all of you.
Sometimes the things we experience in this life are not to be shared with those who do not understand. Some things can only be felt by those who know, who have been to the brink of death and pain and fear, and come back, scarred and forever touched.
I know my sweet Estella wishes I would talk with her about the past, about the hidden memories that only the fellowship can truly understand. Things that only those men standing beside us on the battlefield saw. But I cannot.
I do not keep this knowledge from her because I worry she would not be able to handle it, for she is strong and would willingly hear the tale. No, I do not whisper these words because I know she would not be able to truly comprehend, as we children did not when Bilbo uttered his stories by the fireside. And this telling is no tale for children.
Could words ever do justice to a cold so intense that you feel as though your bones will turn to ice, and blood in your veins freeze? Can words convey what it is like to lay awake in the pitch-blackness of dark corridors, where the voices of a thousand unheard things whisper in your imagination?
How can any of them, save for those who were there, understand what it is to be so tired that your eyes cross trying to keep them open? When the feel of sharp stones in your back as you lay down to sleep is made as soft as the greatest of feather mattresses by something so much more than exhaustion.
No, these words are not to be shared with my bride, though she wishes it were different. Only two remain whom I may share these thoughts with, and I know they feel the same.
My poor Pippin still awakens in the night with terrors he cannot discuss, and though Diamond is a good woman, she is not as forgiving as she needs to be, and becomes flustered that he does not confide in her. She does not realize that he cannot.
Perhaps that is why she spends so much time away, to escape that faraway look in my beloved cousin’s eyes, or the whimpers in the night. She is not as strong as my Estella, much as I wish it were different.
We three, we remnants of battles fought and terrors only we remember late into the night, remain silent as the days pass. We go about our business, and smile as the sun shines, and laugh with our children.
But every now and then, when the days grow cold and the memories become too much, we escape the world for a while in each other’s company, sitting by a fire in a secluded room, the world far away – and closer than any of us wish it to be.
On those nights, when it is just the three of us, we remember, and we talk. And as we talk, the silence that we hold dissolves for a little while, and we leave knowing that when the sun rises again, we shall be able to smile and laugh once more.
For ever has it been with those who give so others do not have to.
It is written as a response to a fanfiction I read, where Merry's wife begs him to tell him of a certain incident, and tells him that there should be no secrets if they are to marry.
Perhaps I see things differently, being a soldier. I am at a post that has just recently returned from the war, and have many friends who suffer from their experiances. Several of them suffer insomnia, and one of them was unable to sleep for a week striaght, to the point of seeing hallucinations.
It is unspoken amongst us that we do not ask them to share their tale. Only those who were there can understand. As soldiers, we know that we, too, are likely to see battle, and may one day face the same terrors that they saw. I myself know that within the next year I will most likely be going to Kuwait or Iraq, and though I dread the thought of leaving my home and friends, it is my duty.
So to have someone persistantly demand an explanation of something they cannot understand - this gets to me on a personal level.
I have experianced things since I have been in that no one can understand unless they were there. I have been so tired that my eyes have crossed trying to keep them open, and though it is a humorouse sight, I'm sure, it is very uncomfortable. And I have had to remain outside in the frigid Korean winter with my rifle ready as I await a possible attack on my home.
I appologise if this offends anyone. That is not the intent, nor is it an attack on the story I mentioned earlier. It is simply something I feel very strongly about, and beg your patience.
If you still want to read this, please tell me what you think.
Thank you, all of you.
Sometimes the things we experience in this life are not to be shared with those who do not understand. Some things can only be felt by those who know, who have been to the brink of death and pain and fear, and come back, scarred and forever touched.
I know my sweet Estella wishes I would talk with her about the past, about the hidden memories that only the fellowship can truly understand. Things that only those men standing beside us on the battlefield saw. But I cannot.
I do not keep this knowledge from her because I worry she would not be able to handle it, for she is strong and would willingly hear the tale. No, I do not whisper these words because I know she would not be able to truly comprehend, as we children did not when Bilbo uttered his stories by the fireside. And this telling is no tale for children.
Could words ever do justice to a cold so intense that you feel as though your bones will turn to ice, and blood in your veins freeze? Can words convey what it is like to lay awake in the pitch-blackness of dark corridors, where the voices of a thousand unheard things whisper in your imagination?
How can any of them, save for those who were there, understand what it is to be so tired that your eyes cross trying to keep them open? When the feel of sharp stones in your back as you lay down to sleep is made as soft as the greatest of feather mattresses by something so much more than exhaustion.
No, these words are not to be shared with my bride, though she wishes it were different. Only two remain whom I may share these thoughts with, and I know they feel the same.
My poor Pippin still awakens in the night with terrors he cannot discuss, and though Diamond is a good woman, she is not as forgiving as she needs to be, and becomes flustered that he does not confide in her. She does not realize that he cannot.
Perhaps that is why she spends so much time away, to escape that faraway look in my beloved cousin’s eyes, or the whimpers in the night. She is not as strong as my Estella, much as I wish it were different.
We three, we remnants of battles fought and terrors only we remember late into the night, remain silent as the days pass. We go about our business, and smile as the sun shines, and laugh with our children.
But every now and then, when the days grow cold and the memories become too much, we escape the world for a while in each other’s company, sitting by a fire in a secluded room, the world far away – and closer than any of us wish it to be.
On those nights, when it is just the three of us, we remember, and we talk. And as we talk, the silence that we hold dissolves for a little while, and we leave knowing that when the sun rises again, we shall be able to smile and laugh once more.
For ever has it been with those who give so others do not have to.
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no subject
Date: 2004-04-02 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-02 10:03 pm (UTC)Thank you. I didn't want to come off sounding mean or grumpy, but I do feel strongly. Just as I'm sure the hobbits must sometimes.
I'm glad you liked it.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-02 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-03 07:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-02 11:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-02 11:44 pm (UTC)And it's one of the great things about fiction -- even fanfiction -- that we get pen-itch and want to write back sometimes. It's funny (not in a ha ha kind of way) that you're using words to talk about not being able to use words. Eventually your friends may find a way to express what they feel, and have experienced -- at least some of them. Words are a solace to some people, whether written or spoken. And even if we've never seen the walls of Minas Tirith, or Troy, words can give us an understanding, however dim, of what it means to be there.
Words come in their own time. Those of us who don't know need to be content with indicating our willingness to listen once the time comes and leaving it most of the time; but there are occasions when it's appropriate to push a little (especially if you've got a friend who is suicidal, and yes, I've been there). And it's human to want to be told.
I don't know which fic you read, but it sounds like the author may have gotten Estella right as a character without necessarily agreeing with the idea that pressure is a good thing. *shrug* But I'm glad you read it. We got a good story out of it, didn't we?
Thank you
no subject
Date: 2004-04-03 07:18 am (UTC)But maybe I am dealing with this on too personal a level. My fiance still has troubles with things he's seen while in the service, he has been in for ten years. He has terrible trouble sleeping, and sometimes has horrible dreams. I have asked him if he wishes to talk, and he always shakes his head and then lights a cigarrette, and will sit in the dark for a long time just thinking. I know to push him further would only be detrimental.
And much as it pains me to see him hurting, I know that some things need to be worked out on their own. Maybe one day he will talk to me, but it will have to be in his own time.
Sorry to be rambling. I don't mean to sound priggish, or like I'm some worldly traveller. I just feel very strongly. It was just a story, but it bugged the heck out of me.
Sorry.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-03 09:05 am (UTC)He was an army corpsman, and he and his company were put ashore on a Japanese held island in the Philippines. But something went wrong and they were captured.
Each day, as the Japanese lined them up to march towards prison, one of the Japanese officers would walk along the back of the line and randomly shoot men in the head.
One morning, my father decided that he couldn't take it, and he walked away into the jungle, expecting to be shot all the time. And for some reason, he wasn't.
He was the only man of his entire unit to reach the submarine that was waiting to pick them up.
They made him an officer -- he said that was why, and then veered off into a story about getting a tennis lesson from Don Budge in Australia, and seeing penicillin work for the first time.
He told me the story in the mid-eighties, about a year before he died, and a few years later my mom said she wasn't sure if it were true, because the only time she'd ever heard him speak of it was when he was drinking.
But I know it was.
Keep listening.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-03 03:44 am (UTC)It also gives the story a deeper meaning, knowing that you actually know of what you speak.
Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-04 05:46 am (UTC)*hugs
no subject
Date: 2004-04-05 12:29 pm (UTC)Thanks for sharing this, and your thoughts.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-06 01:21 am (UTC)