The final story in O'Brien book “The Things They Carried”, it reminds me of what i would've done in a situation, or how i would act for a first date to this date. Only once have i brought my dad back in a dream, I don’t really remember the dream much but i remember enough to know that it wasn't a good dream, it’s also a story I've never told anyone.

I was only about 13 years old, the loss of my dad still 3 months fresh in my mind. I remember Lying down, wondering if anyone at the funeral thought i was a wacko for not crying but instead i was trying to play with my friends, finding out where the buffet was was also on my list of things to do. I wondered if not being upset at the funeral would make it seem as if i “didn't care”. I wondered if my dad was really watching down on me that he would think that i didn't care either. Thats exactly what was in the dream. I remember seeing my dad sitting at the table. i set my schoolbag down and walked over to him and said “dad?” knowing he was gone because just like O'Brien, i saw the body. Since it was a bullet to the head (by his own hand) his head was swollen. He had a respirator hooked up to him and a machine that made his heart beat and a fan blowing warm air into a quilt that he was tucked in under to keep his body warm. He had a bandage around the top of his head and his eyes were closed with dark circles around them.
i walked i from being dropped off by the school bus. I walked up to him and said “Dad? Dad is that you?” he looked at me. his eyes were hollow, his face still held the deep tan he always had. He said “Why don’t you care?” and then started to cry. I walked up to him trying to tell him I really did care, How i just didn't know how to act, How i cared beyond belief. I put my hand on his shoulder and tried to relax him,, at this point his head was folded into his arms and he was crying really hard. he pushed my hand away and said “you don’t care! why don’t you care?” I started to panic and i was freaking out, i kept saying “No no i do! I really Do!” but he kept turning away and bawling his eyes out.

Then my grandma walked in and yelled “Wake Up!”

I sat up in bed and the dream kept playing through my head. I rubbed my eyes and thought Why the hell did i have this dream? I got out of bed and got dressed for school.

I kept urging myself to tell this to someone, to tell this to someone and try to figure out what this dream was about.

Its now 2014, its been 3 and a half years and i still haven’t told anyone. even though the dream was with me again for the past 9 months. I decided to write about it, to get it on paper so

I could get at least a little resolve for it. But still, the guilt still tears at me. To be honest I don’t know if i’ll ever forget it but i do know I can at least try to make up for the guilt. As my dad would say, “The unused talent, bottle up inside but yet that talent is unknown, unfound, Like a bottle with a note at sea unfound and lost.” I started to think that the note in my bottle sad “Talent: Writing” But i never believed it, whenever i wanted to write there wouldn't be a pen or paper near by, or there wouldn't be time to because i’m occupied with friends or there were too many people around for me to write in a “journal” Besides, Who’d wanna read a "un-heard-of sophomore's" story about a dream?