A Thousand Little Wars

Dallas, Texas

Just after midnight on a very dark, storm-lashed October night, a solitary light glowed dimly in a small house on Monticello Avenue. If someone would have approached the front window of 6364 Monticello Avenue, they would have seen something that could best be described as very strange.

In the living room of the single-floor brick house, Lieutenant Nicolas James Adams of the United States Army Air Forces restlessly paced back and forth, flattening the soft carpeting that covered the floor. He was entirely absorbed in a long string of distressing thoughts. His mind was working so late into the night, on overtime, as it were, and his body screamed for sleep. But sleep would not come.

There was, however, no one peering through the window. No one saw “Nick” act so peculiarly. That was because no one—no one at all—was awake in any of the other homes that lined the tranquil street.

In his early twenties, Nick was a man who was quintessentially complex. His analytical mind was well-hidden beneath an unassuming facade. Whether at a social function or a military engagement, he was constantly calculating his next move. He had memorable slate-gray eyes that could shimmer when he wanted them to and burn when he didn’t.

But for once, Nicolas Adams couldn’t figure out what he would do next. Tonight was something different entirely. As a member of the 5th Ferrying Group of the Army Air Forces, his unit was responsible for the transport and maintenance of military aircraft as well as training of aircrews. The post could be at times quite dangerous, and Nick had distinguished himself as one of the unit’s best pilots. Now, the commander of the unit, Brigadier General William Rataczak, had personally called him to his office at Love Field the next day for a meeting.

Something was up.

The night was wet and dark. Bone-chilling raindrops plunged to the ground in torrents, turning the streets of the Lakewood Heights neighborhood in northeast Dallas to a rushing river. The deranged howling of the wind echoed through the trees, shaking loose legions of dead leaves. There was a hint of something sinister in the darkness, and the thunderstorm had nothing to do with it.

Nick continued to walk frustratedly. His tired, apparitional appearance made him appear more like a specter than a human, moving dazedly about the room as if he were floating. What his superior wanted, he didn’t know. What was more, the why, was also unknown and was more a cause for concern. There were some thoughts he just couldn’t get out of his head. These were the thoughts that kept him awake.

There was nothing with which he could adequately occupy his time. Of course, that didn’t stop him from trying.  A few minutes later he flopped awkwardly on his couch and picked up a copy of Ernst Jünger’s Storm of Steel. After perusing the book for a fleeting moment, he found himself unable to concentrate. He looked up every few seconds, stole a fleeting glance at the window, and adjusted his posture, before starting the page all over again.

“One morning, when, thoroughly wet through, I went up out of the dugout into the trench, I could scarcely believe my eyes. The field of battle that hitherto had been marked by the desolation of death itself… Suddenly there was a shot that dropped one of our fellows dead in the mud. . . . Whereupon both sides disappeared like moles into their trenches.”

There was a deeper meaning in the passage somewhere that Nick couldn’t quite decipher.  Storm of Steel was the famous memoir of a German soldier’s experiences during the First World War.  It was preserved for posterity and would not change. It would still be the same tomorrow.

But would Nick’s life be the same tomorrow?  There was an immediacy to the next day’s events that a book could never have. The book was close to his face. The future was closer.

Unsatisfied with his reading of but a meager paragraph in the last five minutes, he tossed the book down and decided to get a bite to eat. He got to his feet and trudged to his kitchen, a small open-concept room that was separated from the living room by a bar counter. Tossing three eggs into a pan, he leaned against the counter and returned to his thoughts as he waited for his meal.

In two minutes (but it seemed like an eternity), the stove timer dinged and Nick found his way back to the present. Pulling a plate from the cupboard, he transferred the small serving from the pan. He turned off the stove, picked up a fork, and sat down at the kitchen table, where the Dallas Times-Herald waited in a neatly tied bundle.

He ate his meal as he flipped gingerly through the pages, settling on a review of the latest detective movie. Four stars out of five, he read. Wonderfully executed… Sure to be an instant classic.

He surveyed his kitchen. The used pan sat in the sink, and a small cloud of smoke hovered over the stove. His eggs, unfortunately, were slightly burnt. Oh, well. He never had been a good cook.  The thundering rain outside and the lingering scent of smoke in his kitchen gave him the impression that a hard-boiled, trench-coat-sporting P.I. might pound on his door at any minute. It was just that kind of night, he surmised. One where something entirely frightening and unexpected waits just around the next corner.

Finishing his snack, he set his plate and silverware in the sink and again settled on the couch, turning on the radio.  “The rain will continue on until about noon tomorrow,” a meteorologist said as he detailed the forecast. “People inside the Dallas metropolitan area can expect several more inches of rain before then.”

Fantastic. More rain.

With that, the forecast ended abruptly, and the late-night news continued with updates on world events. First, there was a report on the war. A correspondent told of a desolate battlefield, littered with weapons and debris. Then, the latest casualty numbers from battles in Europe and the Pacific.

Enough with the war! Nick returned to the tale, hoping to find an article worthy of reading that was not about the war. There was an article on the American Airlines Flight Twenty-Eight collision, a story about the Ruislip Wellington accident, and the results of the Icelandic parliamentary elections.

Perusing the titles, Nick reached a regrettable conclusion. Two plane crashes and a handful of socialists in the Icelandic government. Real nice.  There were many bad things happening in the world. At least for the “world peace” politicians always went on about, 1942 had been a mess of a year.

Seeking an outlet for his trepidation, he threw the paper as far as he could. As it flew through the air, it came apart, finally settling on the floor in a jumble of pages.  He was as concerned about the state of the world as anyone else, perhaps a bit more. The daily news streaming back from overseas war correspondents was enough to make even the strongest men cry.  He was most certainly strong, both physically and mentally. He hadn’t exactly cried yet, but by this point he was a knife’s edge away from a nervous breakdown.

The nervous breakdown would have to wait. He had work to do tonight. That work, however, was constantly dominated by a relentless fear that preyed on him and clawed at his psyche. He sometimes referred to his fear as though it were a distinct and malevolent entity. He referred to it as the Fear.

No matter the reason for his apprehension, he decided he wouldn’t let him overtake him. He knew that if he gave in to his fear now, he could never—would never—sleep a wink again.

Restless, he stood and walked to his bedroom. Flipping on the light switch, the dull glow of the overhead light brightened the small room. He moved to his desk and pulled a cord on a lamp.  Sighing, he picked up a framed photograph.

In the grainy, black and white image, a man in an army general’s uniform stood proudly, smiling for the camera. That man was Nick’s father, Samuel Adams. Named after the Revolutionary War hero and called the “Patriot” by most, Nick had always admired his father’s great accomplishments and missed him bitterly.

Author's Note: This excerpt is from A Thousand Little Wars, copyright © 2025 Gabriel Sus.  All rights reserved.