Losing My Samity: Nightmares

Losing My Samity : Nightmares

The Foundation & The Historic Bond (1984)

Lebanon, 1984

“Mortar fire!”

“Tuff, you go point! Enough, you follow me!”

Sam tried to obey Louie’s orders, but the mortar blast had left his ears ringing so hard he could barely tell which direction the shouting came from. He hoped the others were just as deafened — it made him feel less alone.

Tuff, for his part, lived up to the name. Sam couldn’t remember the man’s real one — or maybe he’d never known it. The guy charged through battle like a bull that had seen red too many times. No shirt, no name tag, just TUFF stenciled across his helmet like a warning label.

“ENOUGH! Listen to me, soldier!” Louie barked.

Lieutenant Duckleby was his proper name, but nobody called him that. Sam preferred to use a shortened version of the man’s rank.

“Huh?” Sam said, even though he understood perfectly. Sometimes pretending helped.

“Goddammit!” Louie snapped. “You are very well named, Enough, because I have had ENOUGH of that shit from you — again!”

Before Sam could respond, Tuff stepped between them like a wall.

“Don’t give Sergeant Harrow any shit, Aquatic Fowl.”

Louie’s eyes bulged. “Jay Eff See! Tuff has a soft spot for Enough. We’re in the middle of shelling and you’re taking him under your damn wing!”

Tuff’s expression twisted into something between a grin and a threat. “We aren’t friends, Fowl. So the fire won’t be friendly.”

Louie, stunned, actually saluted him — heels clicking together like he’d just been inspected by a general.

Another Sam stepped into the scene from the sidelines. It was eerie seeing himself from a different angle. “Is this how it feels, Billy?”

“To be a ghost? Yes,” Billy nodded. “But you aren’t a ghost. You’re alive and restructuring how you see your dream.”

“This feels wrong. Help me a little?” Sam glanced around, shaking his head.

Louie’s Betrayal

Louie, stunned, actually saluted him — heels clicking together like he’d just been inspected by a general.

Sam’s avatar disappears from view & the next moment he’s looking at Louie’s boots as they click together. “I’m me now..”

Louie looks at him, incredulous. “You’re you? So?”

Billy chuckles. “Rewind, Edit.”

Sam sighs. He quickly changes the scene to omit the part where he spoke and Louie answered. Think, don’t say, right?

Right! Billy agreed. I’m sure this is where the fun starts.

Sam has no comment.

Three men approached. “Lieutenant, why ya saluting Tuff over there?”

“Oh, nothing, boys,” Tuff says. He flexes.

“This man threatened me!” Louie began to slither like a snake. “Detain him!”

The men surrounded Tuff as Sam stood aghast. ’Don’t touch him! He’s a good soldier and better man than Louie here!”

Tuff kicked one of the others and uppercutted the second. The third came up behind him, forcing pressure into a full Nelson hold. Tuff kicked his legs wildly to break it up & threw the man off his back onto the ground.

From somewhere a grenade was tossed. The man who had been thrown rolled onto the grenade before it exploded.

Tuff & Sam looked around to see Louie holding the pin.

I don’t remember any of this shit! Sam complained. Is this real? Am I remembering something or am I dreaming it?

“A little of both, Sam,” Billy spoke. “Don’t trust the Dreamweavers.”

Yah, if I were responsible for people’s dreams forming in their sleep, I would make something interesting happen as well.

Billy laughed.

What? You think I wouldn’t be good at it? Screw you. Anyhow I want to watch this some more… maybe I will remember properly what happened after I see the fake.

“You rat bastard!” Tuff screamed. He charged Louie.

Sam watched. “Be careful, Tuff!”

Tuff reached for his knife, indignant of the casual way the coward had murdered one of his to get back at him. “I was joking about the friendly fire, Fowl! I’m gonna clip your wings now!”

“Come at me!” Louie barked. He reached for his pistol in its holster but his fingers slipped on the catch to let the gun out fully.

Tuff capitalized on the moment, He rammed his shoulder into Louie’s sternum and knocked the other man to the floor.

The two other men who Tuff had beaten up earlier grabbed his arms from either side. “Don’t kill the Lieutenant! He deserves a court martial!”

Louie fired from the floor. He shot both of the men once in the head each and put four slugs in Tuff’s chest before his revolver ran out of bullets.

Tuff fell in a heap. “Well that was enough of that one…”

Sam couldn’t talk, too shocked to speak. First he kicked the gun from Louie’s grasp then kicked the man in the head, rendering him out cold.

“Tuff! Please tell me you’re okay!” He leapt on Tuff, rolling the other two bodies off him. He held Tuff’s head in his hands, looking deep into those eyes of his.

“Speaking of Enough, here he is!” Tuff started crying. Sam followed suit. “I doubt I will survive this one….” And then he was gone. His eyes closed and he faded away.

Sam leaned over, pulled the body of the other man into his arms and sobbed. That was my first time ever seeing someone die in front of me, BIlly… hearing his final words spoken.

On the Couch

Sam mutters in his sleep on the couch, drooling. Billy floats, trying to sit in his favorite la-z-boy chair but is foiled.

“That didn’t happen!” Sam says in his sleep. He rolls over to face the back of the couch and farts in Billy’s direction.

Billy sniffs. “I’m so glad I can’t smell that!” Billy says under his breath.

Tuff turns his back for a moment to face Sam. “This is not happening, Sam. I mean it is, but this isn’t how I died!”

Louie leapt on Billy’s back, a knife in his fist. Fade to black.

In the dark, Sam in uniform stares at Tuff. “Where did Louie go?”

“This will hurt me, Sam, but it has to be done.” Billy closed his eyes. A glowing VHS tape appeared between them. A remote control appeared in Billy’s hand.

“Uh, Billy, they didn’t have those back then…” Sam frowned. “Billy? You were Tuff back then.”

“Terence Ulysseys 'Furious' Falkenberger, Sam!” Billy smiled. “And it was me.”

“We met in 1995, Billy,” Sam shook his head. “Tuff was long dead.”

Billy sighed. “I don’t remember that one well, Sam. It happened so damn quick. But it was a version of me. Trust me.”

The VHS tape shined as if getting bored of not being noticed.

Billy sighed. “Okay, let’s watch that tape.”

Sam looked around. “We don’t have a VCR.”

“Metaphor, Sam… just watch..”