It was the mornings that David hated most. A debilitating weakness permeated throughout his entire body and had replaced the sense of adventure that ran through him as a child. His enmity was not a typical disgust with leaving the comfort of a warm bed, it was cultured from the scraping and stealing of his spirit to seize the day. He tried going to sleep early, he visited the doctor to ask for sleeping pills, he had even tried completely changing his sleep schedule by taking a night job. It was one year two months and eighteen days ago, and he could not rest.

It was morning his small kitchen. The room was in shadows, poorly lit by an underpowered light bulb, and accented by brownish fake wood paneling. Beams of sunlight peaked through the slits in the eastward facing window. It was a room of contrast, the sunlight playing foil to an otherwise drab scene.

“Khe Sanh, I remember that lasting for months,” she said as she dropped a slice of garlic in the skillet.

“That was a different fight,” David said laying out two plates, fork on the left, knife on the right. His posture stood strong but his head limped to his right.

There was silence that lasted dangerously long, finally broken by the crackling and popping of heated oil.

“What did you feel, when you saw them coming out of the ground?” she asked.

David looked up at her with a vacant stare, focusing on no part of her body, rather a fixed point beyond her that seemed to flare out in infinite directions.

“I felt like I was going to die,” he said dispassionately.

David sat down slowly in his chair. He ran his thumb across his left hand as if healing a wound, “I remember my mother always told me to have hope. Have hope that dad will return home, have hope for our town, have hope for my safety. She said a man is not broken until his regrets take the place of his dreams.”

His mouth twitched to one side, squeezing his cheek and eye together, “I feel as if I am rushing towards a bottomless regret. Sometimes I wonder if I am already there.”

“We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special news bulletin. Soviet authorities have issued orders prohibiting the distribution of supplies from the Soviet zone to the Western sectors of Berlin today, thereby...”

David set the radio’s nob to off with a let-down and disinterested sigh. He looked outside and observed that the rain had stopped. This was a golden opportunity in a week that had seen nothing but cloudy skies and pouring thunderstorms. He was going to make the most of the day's gift.

David walked outside and admired the sunshine of June, this was a day to visit the creek and catch crawdads or look for turtles. David began walking with a delighted pace and stroll - along the winding path from his house, up the radio tower hill, down to the dusty and unfinished State Road 119, and around the old church grounds. As he approached the seemingly ancient wooden bridge he stopped at the sound of muffled voices. They were coming from underneath the bridge and were a mixture of crying and a sarcastic laughter.

“First you broke me bicycle because you’re too stoo-pid to look across the street when your dumb self wants to walk, then you break my rule of staying out of my sight. What do you have to say to that Sam? Or is it Stoopid Sam?” boiled from a boy not much older than David. “Paul, hold him down for me. Time for a lesson Sam.”

David stepped back, away from responsibility, stepping into a large puddle that caused a splash that echoed in the hills around them.

The boy pinning the victim down looked up at David instantly, “Hey. Hey you!” he shouted in an accusatory tone, “Who the hell you think you are?”

David didn’t know what to do, his feet were motionless.

“Well?” questioned the boy, releasing his grip from the first victim, “Or do you want some of this too?”

The boy began lumbering towards David with a raised fist that screamed, “Yes, I am insane and will make you know it.”

David ran. He ran away from the church, away from the state road, and away from the radio tower, David ran in a confused haste filled with guilt and anger in himself for not standing firm. He ran until his breaths were rocketing out and slamming back into his chest with equal force. He ran until his foot slammed hard against stone obscured in the muddy ground. His stomach slammed hard into the ground in front of him.

Shaking his head and cradling his stomach in pain, David planted a hand down and began to rotate to a sitting position. The world around him the world seemed brighter, but his world was shadowed. He looked up experimentally and as he looked up he froze. Leaning over him in a manner that completely obscured the sunlight, was an old man with veiny hands and fingers that seemed to fracture out into nine different directions.

The old man looked down at David, young, weak, and infinitely small. David looked back at the man, who now seemed to have less a face than a rotting canvas on which a face could be painted.

The old man’s mouth did not move but David heard a hacking and coughing as if the man had swallowed a dying ember. David, still digging into the dirt with his hands, tried to slowly pull himself backwards.

The words that came next were as clear to David as a creek bed illuminated by radiating daylight. David again did not see the man’s mouth move, but out came the words, “What’s the rush boy? Take your time.” There was a long consumptive breath, as if the old man’s next words were killing him with repetition, “I know where you are going, and you’re already there.”

David Zimmerman was a well mannered boy, that was for sure. But he was a boy of three parents, his mother at the core, the crackling broadcasts of The Shadow playing a supporting role, and the rolling wooded expanse outside of Greensburg as the background character. He liked adventure and he liked being alone, and these attributes surely didn’t fit well with those who came from the city proper.

Unbeknownst to him, he mortified his mother on more than one occasion. When he was 8, his mother had over a number of who’s who of the community for the Wives of Service Men club. As snacks were being served, David ran into the house covered head to toe in a thick mud paste from the nearby creek.

“Mom, I got one, I really did this time!” he said as his face, surrounded with the glow of success, melted into a bashful horror. Thinking not of his grimy appearance, for David was a boy of order, he was more ashamed of being so rude in front of a group of women whom he had never introduced himself to. Forcing his feet to move against the shame, David walked towards the group of women, most bewildered at this creek-child, and extended a hand still slick and slimy with mud.

“Hello mam, my name is David Zimmerman,” he said in a tone of respect and honor.

There was a brief cessation of time in the room. David’s mother, jaw gaping open, desperately hoping for something to save the situation from her assuredly quick social death. That boy is doing more damage than he realizes she thought, feeling a love yet frustration that only a parent endures.

“Charmed,” said the first woman, feigning towards a handshake much like a man would feed a hungry tiger.

Later that year, David’s mom changed. David didn’t understand it completely, but he knew that the joy in her had left. It seemed like every day she would age a year. Each night before bed she would tell him to pray for his father.

“Hold on. You and I must hold on,” she would tell David in sporadic and shattered syllables. “They’re looking for him,” she said as tears slid down her cheeks, “you and I. We must hold on to hope that they will find him David, we must pray.”

Time is of the essence

"Hold on," he shouted above the hum of the diesel engine. "You're already here. Take your time."

The old man reacted, slowing his shuffling feet through the slush and snow, he grabbed onto the metal pole, and hoisted himself in.

Had he of known that an ocean of memories was about to be sent through his brain, he would have thought twice before taking that final step.