William sits on a bus; his body sways with the movement of the rumbling machine. A boy sits in front of him, his dyed black hair falls in his heavily lined eyes and his face is studded with metal. The thud of his music can be heard from where William sits, three seats away. The youth taps his hand along to the music. An apprehension grows in Williams stomach. All of a sudden an irrepressible urge fills him, and he barely stops himself from getting up, lunging toward the boy and slamming his own hand over the kids, to stop the steady tap that was slowly sounding more and more like a drum. Can’t you hear them? The drums. The ever approaching, ever beating drums. Time flashes before Williams eyes. Not to the future, but to the past. The beating of persistently heavy rain on his back, running in rivers down his mosquito bitten neck. The beating of two hearts, close together, crouching in the humidity of the jungle, watching the enemy, knowing that one wrong move, one footstep in the wrong direction, one second glance into the undergrowth by one enemy soldier and both hearts, now pumping so hard would slow and stop. The beating of nervous fingers on the barrel of a gun. William is unaware of the stares his twitches and moans are attracting; his eyes are glazed over, his own fingers tapping out the methodical beating of the ever present hammering in his head; "€˜Can't you hear them? The beating in the distance, coming closer, ever closer-They're coming" William gets weakly to his feet, pressing hard on the stop button; he suddenly has to get out of the claustrophobic confines of metal walls, so unlike and yet so similar to the humid confines of the jungle. William walks down a grimy city street, hundreds of miles away from the place that haunts his nightmares. Hundreds of people pass by him, the scuffing of shoes on concrete and the mundane conversation of people without a care mix together into one low hum. William hardly sees the people that rush past him, with places to go and things to do. Everything mixes into one vast blur of colour, sound and movement; nothing penetrates this barrier of unawareness. Until. A man with scraggly hair and ragged clothes sits in the filth of the street with a handmade sign and knocking a single coin against a chipped mug. A stranger emerges from the crowd and drops change into the man’s lap. The man tips his battered hat to the kind stranger, and resumes tapping out the familiar beat. William turns his head, the sound drifts through his barrier, again, the beating of the drums, ever present in his head rises to the surface, blood pounds like the beat in his head. Again a blur of memories whizzes past William'€™s eyes. He is no longer walking the street; he is lying on his back in a room painted white. Beneath his body is a comfortable lounge that seems to take his weight, but not the burden. A man sits in front of him with a sympathetic face, a clipboard on his knee and an encouraging smile on his lips. "€œCan'™t you hear it Doctor? Listen. It's there. The drums, the beating of the drums." The man shakes his head slightly, a frown creases his brow, and he makes a note on the clipboard. " How does it make you feel?" William turns his head slowly to look at the doctor, and sees to his disgust that the man’s face is dead straight. A deep breath and a sigh. " It makes me feel like it should have been me who is dead," says William, that night playing like an old movie in his head. The jungle is dark, but even the darkness does'€™t bring relief from the air, thick with humidity. The stench of mud doesn’t register to William in his memory anymore, but the irritable skin underneath layers of cracking mud does, a second of selfish impulse, the need to pull away the soil, just one second, the crunch of a stick underfoot, the flash of a gun, a piercing scream and then silence. Silence. And then drums. The sound of drums. The drums that would never stop never let him forget. As if he needed reminding. William notices that he has stopped walking. He has to get home, to somewhere where the drums may ease. To the liquor cabinet in the darkened corner, like a naughty child, punished for bad behaviour. An empty bottle and the drums are muffled, distant, an annoying hum in the background. But other things rise to the surface, feelings he doesn’t usually have room for, in a mind obscured by drumming. Guilt. William stares at the photographs set atop his mantelpiece. William wears a dark suit, a beautiful woman in a white dress at his arm, their faces shining with happiness, new rings on their fingers. A smiling child with dark curls balances on Williams hip, her big green eyes identical to his. The series of photos continue on, documenting years past, the growth of the girl, the fading of the woman. The photographs sit opposite the liquor cabinet, in a silent face off, a constant reminder to William that one cannot exist there while the other remains. His spinning head can see their faces, cannot remember the date of the last time he saw them, but he remembers what had happened. The woman, her eyes wild with fear. The child, who doesn't recognise him anymore. The child who shies away from his touch. The tears, the hurt and the confusion. Slowly their faces run into each other, the colours mixing, blurring, fading into the familiar black. William wakes. The steady beat is always louder in the mornings, but the few hours of almost silence makes it worth it. In these mornings anything can sound like the primitive beating of drums, his foot falls on the floorboards, the neighbours dog, even the traffic outside. William has come to a decision He checks the mailbox. Nothing. The answering machine. Nothing. They don’t want to talk to him. William has come to a decision. Today the drums will stop. Today the drums will end. He will make them end.