Every month I try reading Playboy, but those darn pictures keep getting in the way. Actually, the magazine often features interesting articles, and is one of the few major periodicals to publish short fiction. A few years ago, Playboy featured an article on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder of Iraq War veterans. One image from that article that stayed with me was a description of how a small patrol had to drive through and over a crowd of people to escape. One of the soldiers was later cleaning the truck and found bits of hair and bodily material stuck in the bumper. The man went into a catatonic state when he remembered what happened.
In the preceding story, I wanted to place a person in a similar mental state. I have never been in a combat situation, but it seems that people compartmentalize emotions so they can be dealt with later. The protagonist in the story, Ray, is able to control this compartment until he is forced to do something that breaks it open. Once it is broken, what does one do then?