Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

There is a group of workmen just down the hall from my desk, demolishing office walls. Something that they are doing is a thudding, thump, thump, thump. Every time that reverberation hits my body I clench, time stops for an eighth of a second, my heart like a fist.

My daughter has a new bed, with soft nets, and no longer has rails to hit her head against, a thudding, thump... thump... thump; I used to feel it in my feet when I was upstairs with my headphones on, and would realize that I had been clenching, unaware, for some time now. My body knew, had heard through these soft reverberations, and was tightening like a knot. I realize then with my mind and run down, and she is crying in bed, rocking, thudding, her soft head making a hard noise on the railing. I feel like a shit-head for not spending every waking hour sitting here in her room, cradling her head so she can rock in bed, back and forth... it is something that she appears to enjoy.

My daughter has a new bed, and I can sit, peaceful, in the office, as long as my son's feet are not padding, thump thump thump, against his hard-wood floor.

In my office I can feel it, pulsing through my feet, heart like a fist, forcing myself to not stand and run.

Somewhere down the hall, my daughter is assisting work-men, breaking through walls with the back of her head.