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Without further wait, here is part 2 of my ficcy!!
PART 2
Dinner.
Is this what real food looks and smells like? It is a simple meal that seems like a gourmet feast…a gourmet feast that is too grand for your taste buds. You eat it anyway, your dad beaming at you, his son, who has returned…alive from a war.
A strange look from your father, a comment about “when mashed potatoes attack,” and you look up from your food-staring contest. No reason for two people to be depressed, so you plaster on a smile that does not quite reach your eyes. Then, with next to any prompting, you were off talking about all those wonderful years that were taken from you. The jokes and friendships, the death and heartache, the joys and sorrows…Your food lay quite forgotten and you talked well into the night, quitting only when you were tucked in and kissed goodnight.
It was late, the bed was too soft. You groan in frustration and move yourself and a blanket to the floor.
Awake seemingly an instant later from a dreamless sleep, the sun shining through an unfamiliar window into an unfamiliar room. You sit up and look more carefully around at your surroundings, but your eyes finally strayed to your trunk-the chest that had been by your bed for a long time over in Korea. With shaking hands and tousled hair that give you a desperate appearance, you slide the latch and open it. The heavy lid groans it’s protest and from it’s years of abuse. You were hit by the familiar sent of Korea, like a part of it had been locked away in that chest…saved for when you returned home. But what was home?
A whole life had been crudely packed into the trunk. Crude, just like the living conditions, like the war. You shuffle through it, and pause to look through a small stack of pictures that were tucked sideways, hiding from the small light. A painting that Potter made of you lounging in his chair with a dry martini in your hand that was raised in a mock toast toward the painter is the first picture to stare back at you. A few group photos, several embarrassing ones of Frank or Charles that would have some in handy for blackmailing, but were sadly never needed follows your old army fatigues that were maybe worn once or twice in their lifetime and had only been folded once-when they were first made…
You hear your dogtags rattling towards the bottom, and are still surprised, not for the first time, that the army never wanted them back to reuse for the next war. You pull them out from where they are cradled next to some socks that had missed a month of washings. Never had you been without them (the tags), day, night, or shower. You quickly dump them back before you put them on…wanting to feel the light weight and hear soft jungle of them as you walk…
You hear your dad’s soft footfalls nearing the door and hurry to shut the trunk and sit on it…then wonder what you are doing; acting like a child about to be caught in the middle of planning a famous prank. The thought brings a ghost of a smile to your lips.
~.~*,’,*~.~
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