Julius suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Seemed to Julius that every soldier did. They couldn't avoid it, at least the ones in his unit. Those three weeks traveling through Iran, Iraq and finally ending in hellish Palestine would crush the psyche of any mortal. Julius had improved since coming back to the states. The emotional anxiety and re-experiencing those weeks had gone down over the past two years, but he couldn't control everything. Normally, his reactions weren't as violent, but for a particular reason that night Julius snapped. For him, PTSD was like a pressure cooker, which needed to let steam off occasionally to stay healthy. Lately, Julius was having trouble venting and the pressure had continuously built up.
The reason Julius still worked for mom was because he provided Julius with something to do. Mom is a nickname for the retired Captain that led Julius's unit overseas. Julius rarely ever called him by his real name, mom was more appropriate. The captain would pace the operation room while his unit was out and wear the soles of his boots out from the amount of pacing. The relief that all his boys came back would sometimes bring the Captain to tears, only the unit knew about that though. Anyways, Julius needed to work, to stay busy and Mom provided odd jobs here and there. Sometimes local police wanted additional training, a gunsmith wanted some extra help, or Mom knew a friend who could busy Julius's hands with some project.
Mom had told Julius to take the day off three weeks ago, and he hadn't heard back from Mom since.
Now it was just around the holidays. A rough time for Julius, he always felt the cliche in it, but there were no holidays for a Ranger. The holidays also reminded Julius of his lack of a nuclear family. Before entering the military and after returning from service, Julius volunteered at an orphanage if the city he was in had one, if not the local rec center would do. He knew that he couldn't get back his childhood holidays, so he could at least fill the void with new memories working with those kids that were just like him eighteen years ago. The last town he had lived in, a town in the states that is, had a rec center, and that's where he met Penelope.
Penelope was a year older than Julius, he was twenty. Penelope was a journalist but in school working on an education degree at the time. She loved children and to tell stories, so a teacher made sense. Julius walked into the rec center that day, like any other day, kids trailing him in excitement, they loved the games that Julius knew, from volleyball while sitting on the ground to a game that was like dodgeball but never ended. Right before Julius and the kids entered the gym, he saw Penelope (he didn't know it was her at the time) talking to Tina, the rec center director.
"Hey Julius, come here for a sec," Tina said.
Julius told the kids to go in the gym and get the balls out, he'd be right in.
"What's up Tina?" Julius asked.
"This is Penelope, she's a journalist doing a story on our rec center, the kids, and it's workers. You're probably the first person she ought to talk to." Tina said.
"Um, well hi. I'm Julius," Julius said.
Penelope was about 5 inches shorter than Julius, only reaching to about his shoulder. Her light brown hair that fell to her shoulders seemed to be wavy but had the slightest curl at the end. On that day, she had part of her hair braided, right over her left ear. She had large grey eyes that seemed to take in every little detail around her.
"Well, if you're willing, I'd love to interview you. Tina told me that you do a quite a bit of volunteering here," Penelope said. Her voice was sweet like a cold stream running over rocks but strong, demanding attention.
"Sure," Julius said.
"Here's my card, gimme a call when you've got the chance," Penelope said.
And with that, she walked out the rec center. It took Julius a couple of days to muster the courage to call her. To Julius, the call for an interview was more than for her story, why couldn't she have interviewed him at the rec center?
Julius was struck in the face by the blast of air that blew over the frozen lake, reviving him from the memory. He never enjoyed the cold or the winter, nothing stayed green or smelled fresh and lively. The only reason he was outside was to walk off what he had done last night. Exercise helped him think.
He pulled out his cellphone and called the local radio station. They were taking requests on a voice mail for songs. He asked for You're My Sunshine by Norman Blake. It was from O Brother, Where Art Thou?, it was Julius's favorite movie. Also, talk of sunshine lightened Julius's mood.
As he was about 3/4 across the lake, Julius heard a crack. Then another crack. He knew that he must spread his weight evenly to lower the chance of falling into the water. As he went down to his hands in knees, the ice split and his weight carried him head over heels into the black water.
Julius tried to resurface, but couldn't find the hole, he could hardly see. Training had told him that if he didn't get out in under 30 seconds, chances were he wouldn't make it. The lack of oxygen and the crushing cold temperature of the water were sapping his strength.
"Son, can you hear me," The voice of an older man said.
"Son, I need to know if you can hear me, if so, gimme a thumbs up," said the voice again.
Julius gave the thumbs up.
"Good. Well, it seems that you're recovering. Fell into a frozen lake, huh?" The voice said.
Julius didn't respond, he was too disoriented to know where he was.
"Son, you're in the hospital, you nearly died because of the cold and the fact that you were near drowning. Lucky for you, a man named Vinny was around. Apparently he was taking the kids from the orphanage to the city limits to do some caroling, when he heard a splash."
Julius had realized that the person speaking was a doctor. The whole "son" thing was getting on Julius's nerves, but he passed it off for an old-school way of addressing someone.
"Anyways, besides you nearly drowning, I noticed that your a vet experiencing PTSD."
Julius snapped his eyes to the doc and furrowed his brow. His diagnosis of PTSD shouldn't show up on any medical chart.
"Son, I know when I know. If you need someone to talk to go see Dr. Miller. He's done some work with soldiers coming back from the Middle East. He might be some help," The doc said.
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