PTSD... Episode 2.

- Drake*

Unpublished Works, © 2026, BillyPauleyJr.^*

EPISODE 2.

“Hey, your tv’s on,” Kris laughed as we came thru’ my front door. He reached over and turned the knob as my tv went silent.

“No! Don’t!” I overreacted towards his sensible motion. “I need that on!” Taking a deep breath and speaking with calm and good sense, “I… I want that on… please.”

“Sure,” he turned it back on. “You want it on when you’re gone?”

“Yes. 24/7… that way I don’t miss anything.”

Kris gave a puzzled look at me, then the tv, “Always Fox News?”

“Yes.”

“Hmmph.”

“It’s just habit, it’s what they had on in Baghdad… 24/7,” feeling angered again with having to explain it. My anger turning into a fear that I couldn’t control, “I just want it on, ok?”

“Yeah, man,” Kris accepted my weirdness.

“I’m thinking about getting a tv for my bedroom,” I said my reflective tho’t out loud. We both laughed at how silly that sounded in the moment.

“Ready to go to work?” Kris asked. I got the feeling that maybe he tho’t I wasn’t. We had spent the morning returning some of my gear. Now it was time to go to work.

Back at work, my first day, I grew sick and tired quickly at the visitors wanting to welcome me home and tell me what a hero I was. “Fuck them. What do they know.” The more I heard that word, hero, the more I was doubting I should be here.

Tony came running up with a coffee pot. “Looks like you’re running low, sir! Gotta keep the hero pumped up.”

“Thanx,” I offered, “That’s not how it works.”

“That’s how it works here!”

“No, I mean I’m not a hero… I’m lucky to be alive…” looking around at the gratuitous ignorance, “…if I am.”

“If you are?! You’re alive and well, never looked better!”

“Death comes in many sizes,” I walked away. I never tho’t seeing friends would be so hard. They were understandably cheerful. I was miserable. So many hugs, handshakes and pats on the back. All the while my unrighteous ingratitude giving me shouting tho’ts, “You’re all pathetic! Flooding in to claim me a hero; to steal a piece of my unearned valor! I’m not a hero! I did not save ANYONE!” “Fuck!”, I said out loud as I dropped my coffee and grabbed my suddenly piercing head. Someone held my arm and led me to sit in a chair.

“Sergeant Pauley, you ok?” I heard a soft, familiar voice. A hand touched my hand ever so slightly, comforting, yet I flinched and in a forced calm said, “Please… don’t.” The consoling hand squeezed mine, patted it faithfully and pulled away. “Don’t,” I said again, this time meaning don’t leave me, but allowing it to stay in my cloudy resistance.

As my headache resigned, I could sense space given to my demeanor and hear a commotion near me at Andrea’s desk. Comforted in familiarity I moved toward the commotion. “Ah… Andrea,” I said nearly laughing. “You owe me your life, woman!” I declared as I approached her.

She stood and gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek, “Yes sir, I do! How, ever can I repay you?”

“With your life. I tho’t I was clear.”

“Well, that sounds fair,” she smiled as I patted her back. This conversation was an ongoing interaction between Andrea and me. I traded her deployments so she could be in Seattle, near her children. At the time she had not been tasked and it was taking her tasking that found me in Baghdad when the war broke out. I teased her about it, but in all things military… you never know. I was not in the least unhappy about me being in Baghdad and her being safe with her daughters in Seattle.

As I stood near Andrea, I suddenly realized what the commotion was about. One of her young troops, Cyd, was leaning in and they were looking at a press release on Andrea’s computer. An Iraqi leader had been killed and the photo of his lifeless body was out on the world wide web for everyone to see. Oddly, their giggling and casual behavior did not fit the heavy projection of death there on the screen before us. Not for me. When Andrea caught the change in my expression, she took my hand and said, “Did you see this? They killed him… today.” She must’ve felt this would make me smile… that I would be pleased. I know she did not mean ill by it, but suddenly I was transported to the sights and sounds of my war. I was no longer looking at her directly although’ I could see her in my peripheral vision… her face caught somewhere between a smile and a frown. I could feel her rubbing my hand as if to calm me; bring me back. She read me well. “It was her…” the hand and voice that comforted me earlier. “Don’t,” came out once again and I felt her release. A heavy rush of loss compelled me to communicate with a dark sarcasm.

I paused and began stepping away, “Yep,” I conceded, “that’s what it looks like.”

“What looks like?” asked Cyd innocently, missing my angry tone.

“Death.”

“O’, did you…” she went silent as I could see Andrea mouthing, “Stop.” I went back to my desk.

I was steaming. “What the fuck was that? Did I just witness people looking at a dead man and laughing? Is death funny now? And why did I have to see that… again? Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” My emotions bleeding, I stomped my foot and inadvertently kicked my garbage can.

“Sergeant Pauley, you ok,” came Andrea’s voice from over the partition that separated us.

“Yes,” the answer I had to give. I wanted badly to say ‘no’; to invite her soothing voice and hands to calm me. Experiencing that feeling only recently I knew it was what I needed. She was kind and I needed that to deconflict my war. But I felt my darkness was bigger than any kindness and would risk destroying her good. So I put on my silent face of bravery… or so I tho’t.

Later, I found myself at Walmart. Walking around the store for the first time since I was back from the war, things seemed different. The look was the same, the feeling quite removed. Maybe I just wasn’t used to the dynamics of being in public yet. Entering the electronics department, an employee behind the counter greeted me, “Hi, is there anything I can help you find?”

“What the fuck?” I tho’t as I pulled back and stared intently at him. “Why the fuck would I need help finding something? What the hell is he trying to pull?” Eventually I dismissed him as a real threat, gave him a dirty look and moved on.

In front of a row of televisions… all playing Fox News… all covering the war. But what caught my attention was the people watching those televisions. The looks they had on their faces as the news of death and destruction fell into their unaffected lives.

I found myself growing angry. It was like Andrea and Cyd at the office all over on a bigger scale. “Is this how it is now? Death and destruction acceptable entertainment as long as you don’t have to fucking touch it or smell it?”

A young lady holding a baby stopped to look at the news. Her husband coaxed her on as she pointed at the tv and he gave it a dismissive wave and eyeroll as he walked away. She followed. I wanted to punch him in the face for not giving a shit.

More and more I saw people pass by and as I would catch someone glancing, I would think, “That’s right… you have NO IDEA! You cannot even fathom it with it full in your face, here, in the middle of the day without any fear of incoming rounds! In the comfort of your fucking shopping day at the local Walmart! You choose not to care… (breathe, breathe) you consciously choose to treat the war as if it isn’t even happening right in front of your face! A disgusting choice made possible by the blood of those you currently treat as some flippant ad on tv!”

“Sir?” came a voice from an employee behind me.

I spun around, “Fuck!”

He immediately put up his hands and wide-eyed said, “Sorry, just checking if you wanted any help?”

“Hmmph, help? Again, with the,” I was mumbling to myself.

“With a TV?” he interrupted my inner rant. There was a long, uncomfortable pause.

“O’, yes! I need a television. Is this one available?”

At home I was finally in bed. TV hanging on my bedroom wall; tv in my living room… both tuned into Fox News. Both taunting my inner war and daring me to get away. Visions of adult Walmart customers, Andrea, Cyd, Tony and all in their adolescent nature made me scoff, “What the fuck is wrong with people?”

-Drake^*

PTSD …is a Smokey the Toad^™ production.

Please find me here Sundays for more PTSD episodes… be safe!