Fortune
Favors Those Who Die Young
“It
feels just like yesterday,” an old man says to himself while
staring at his gnarled old hands. “ I can sometimes still feel the
grain of bark against my young hands, or the smooth touch of my first
love. Those are long gone now though.” he says, sinking back into
the warm water of his bathtub. He pulls his head under as he once did
when he was a child, and exhaled into the water, shooting a stream of
bubbles to the surface. His smile is quickly replaced by a frown when
the joints in his hips ache from the position he's laying in.
Emerging, he whispers “fortune favors those who die young”, and
slips into his robe and walks to his bedroom; trumpets sound a song
of defeat.
Sitting
in a tall-backed chair in front of the fireplace, he stares at the
smoldering embers, and says “That's right. Today is my birthday
isn't it? I suppose I'm too old to break tradition now”. He pulls
out his leather-bound book, and picks up his pen to start writing
under a large header of “Year 72”. After only three lines, he
places the pen back inside the spine of the book, and sets it down
next to his chair. The motion of setting the book down brushes the
pages from beginning to end showing a flip-book of gradual apathy.
The first few pages are written in full, but page after page – year
after year- they grow smaller in substance and meaning. He doesn't
even bother to try at this point. Closing his eyes, he falls asleep,
his head full of the thoughts that have haunted him since he could
remember: inevitability.
His
dreams are the same as every night since he could remember. He was a
young man again, flying a P-51 Mustang over the coast of Western
France during the second World War. A browned picture of a beautiful
woman with loose rings of black hair sits in his steering wheel, so
that if he went down, she would be the last thing he saw. With every
metal tooth he sunk into the hides of opposing German planes, he
would tuck away the thought of running his strong hands up her smooth
thigh, as he kissed her passionately on the neck. Outside of
returning to a woman, what other reason would a man have to paint the
sky with blood and metal day in and day out?
The
war was long and bloody, and the boys who walked into it with
youthful courage, left sullenly as men, carrying in the bags on their
backs a lifetimes worth of demons. The war was over, and when his
boat pulled into the harbor at New York, some of the soldiers would
holler and laugh as the enormous crowds of the city cheered to them.
Too many soldiers just sullenly watched as the others waved. Jumping
in a cab near the dock, Will gave his address to the driver, and sat
back to stare out of the window at a city that had changed entirely
in his short while away. The ride took a good twenty minutes, but he
was used to long distances of traveling while being left to his own
thoughts. If his tone didn't block any advances of conversation from
the driver, his sullen face did. It wouldn't be until they pulled up
outside the third story apartment he shared with Alice that the
reflection on the window would show a smile. “I'm home Alice” he
muttered to himself, giving the driver too much money, and pushing
back the drivers hand when offered change.
Walking
to the front door, Will patted his coat pocket to make sure the ring
was still safely tucked away inside. He smiled to himself, and
laughed when he realized it was the first time being nervous wouldn't
lead to fearing he would never see his Alice again. He almost reached
the door, and frowned when he saw a Chrysler Saratoga parked on the
side of the road. “Whose car could that be?” he thought to
himself as he pushed open the door. For many years, doubt had fought
with young Will, trying to worm itself into his head. How funny that
it would take a world wide war ending, to finally find a way into
Will Pascal. His pace quickened as he walked the stairs to
his old room, and his heart was pounding louder than anything except
for his own fist on the door. The sound of romance filled the outside
hallway.
Opening
the door, Will found a man with a greasy smile, and oil-slicked hair
buttoning up his pants, while Alice sat with the bed sheet pulled up
to cover her breasts. The woman turns to will, and shouts “What's
the big idea? Bargin' in here like tha-” and is cut off when the
light of a passing car shows his face to her. “Will” she
whispers, “I figured you would have been long dead by now”. The
man, looking between the two of them did not understand the
situation, and puffed up his chest as he walked over to Will. “Listen
here army boy, Alice is with me now, so scram.” Alice's scream
muffles the sound of Will's .45 caliber that illuminated the room for
a split second. Clutching his chest, the man sinks to his knees, and
is casually pushed out of the way.
Turning
to Alice, Will's face contorted between the horror of what he had
just done, and anger at why it had happened in the first place.
“Will.. do- don't kill me, please. I'm sorry” she murmurs through
a wall of tears. “Sorry!” Will demands. “Every day out there,
every day butchering men, and hoping I could make it home to see you.
Every day, staring at your picture, the thought of coming home to
marry you being the only thing keeping me together! And I come home
to this? The ghosts of my past are going to haunt me for the rest of
my life, just so I could see you!”. Turning to the door, Will looks
over his shoulder at her and says “how could I have misjudged a
whore like you.” and strolls from the room laughing as if finally
understanding some great cynical joke. She sees him put the
silhouette of a ring back into his pocket as he strolls from the
room. Two different Alices began to weep in that room, dimly lit by
moon.
Waking
up, Will sees a flash of faceless men, bloodied by his own actions,
and vomits into a small pot near his chair. Wiping off his mouth, he
picks up his book, and tosses it into the fire. Ominous, in that he
wouldn't live to write another chapter anyway. The last two months of
Will's life were bitter, and full of wishing to try his youth all
over again. To stop being haunted by the ghosts of all those he
killed, and so that he could finally wash the memory of Alice's naked
body from his hands. In those last days of his, the thought of that
woman would lead him to scrubbing his hands together until the skin
cracked and bled.
Will
died alone, not because life was harsh to him, because it is harsh to
everyone. Will died alone because he lost most of himself in the
skies above Europe, and the rest of him was left in the stained
floorboards of that third story apartment bed. Had he only been an
adult when he started to kill for his nation instead of a boy. Oh
god, one can only weep for the dead bodies of children like Will that
would walk around not knowing it for the rest of their lives.
- Bellum Paenitere
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