There’s a rhythmic booming sound
It’s a fist banging against at a door while someone cowers in the corner of the room on the other side
Hoping the lock will hold as the wood shivers with the pounding…
No, he assures me, it’s just some hammering or someone on the stairs
No, it’s a heavy thumping
It’s the rough and tumble struggle of a fight while children cry in their beds beneath the covers
Promises that everything will be alright fall as loudly as a body thrown to the ground…
It’s okay, he says, just neighbors dropping things on the floor
Wait, there’s a voice screaming
It must be voice of someone calling for help, someone in trouble, lives at stake
A fervent request for aid as the darkness closes in…
A television in the next apartment, he says, just relax
Shhhh, it’s the sound of tapping
There must be someone locked in a room with no way to escape, a prisoner quivering in fear
Tapping out a call for help in hopes that someone will listen…
His face and his lips say no, it’s all in my mind,
PTSD turns the harmless into the harmful, hypervigilance, nothing is safe,
I want to believe him, but maybe he’s just covering for them….
Thank you.
Wow. Powerful. Thank you.