“I really don’t know how to start this, let alone talk about it.”
“I understand perfectly.” I said to him.
“Yet, you want me to talk about this.”
“Yes.”
“Then I need a drink. And since I am giving you a free lecture on the beginning of how it started, I am expecting you to pay.”
“I will”
He ordered a gin and tonic, I asked for a tonic water. It was the beginning of the summer, and the bartender was looking slightly red from all the drink he snuck in from the bottles behind him. The door was open to let the air in, cars were playing radio at the top volume, people were walking around in tank tops and shorts to enjoy the sun.
I was talking to my cousin because he was one of the survivors involved in the event that eventually sparked the great war of 45.
It wasn’t that I wanted to know anything, but it was the war that still haunts us to this day, and though the textbooks tell us that an incident in 43 had spread into the war, no one was ever clear about how it happened. Moreover, when I see them today, and compare them to the monsters they were depicted as in the textbooks, I couldn’t help but wonder why people were so afraid and thought that they had to be fought against and conquered.
“We were crossing a field that day. Simple as that. We were just trying to get to a market on the other side, and we made sure that we weren’t treading on their land. We even bought a compass for that matter. But the compass was somehow broken. The needle didn’t point correctly to north. So we went astray and before we knew it we were somewhere in the middle of a field. I learned that it was their landowner’s field in the hospital. We were supposed to be skirting the edge of their land. If only that damn compass worked. Really, they say that it’s always something small that spreads into a wildfire. I always laughed at that, but now, I know that it was based on truth. To this day I still damn that shop owner who sold me that compass”
The day was really picking up its heat, and the bartender turned on the ceiling fan hoping that it might cool the bard down. All it did was just stirred the air around. Heat was starting to surround us, and the open cafe next door was starting to rake in people looking for something cool to drink. There weren’t much people in the bar, just my cousin and me, and some old people who sat in their chairs like they were a fixture in the bar.
“I understand perfectly.” I said to him.
“Yet, you want me to talk about this.”
“Yes.”
“Then I need a drink. And since I am giving you a free lecture on the beginning of how it started, I am expecting you to pay.”
“I will”
He ordered a gin and tonic, I asked for a tonic water. It was the beginning of the summer, and the bartender was looking slightly red from all the drink he snuck in from the bottles behind him. The door was open to let the air in, cars were playing radio at the top volume, people were walking around in tank tops and shorts to enjoy the sun.
I was talking to my cousin because he was one of the survivors involved in the event that eventually sparked the great war of 45.
It wasn’t that I wanted to know anything, but it was the war that still haunts us to this day, and though the textbooks tell us that an incident in 43 had spread into the war, no one was ever clear about how it happened. Moreover, when I see them today, and compare them to the monsters they were depicted as in the textbooks, I couldn’t help but wonder why people were so afraid and thought that they had to be fought against and conquered.
“We were crossing a field that day. Simple as that. We were just trying to get to a market on the other side, and we made sure that we weren’t treading on their land. We even bought a compass for that matter. But the compass was somehow broken. The needle didn’t point correctly to north. So we went astray and before we knew it we were somewhere in the middle of a field. I learned that it was their landowner’s field in the hospital. We were supposed to be skirting the edge of their land. If only that damn compass worked. Really, they say that it’s always something small that spreads into a wildfire. I always laughed at that, but now, I know that it was based on truth. To this day I still damn that shop owner who sold me that compass”
The day was really picking up its heat, and the bartender turned on the ceiling fan hoping that it might cool the bard down. All it did was just stirred the air around. Heat was starting to surround us, and the open cafe next door was starting to rake in people looking for something cool to drink. There weren’t much people in the bar, just my cousin and me, and some old people who sat in their chairs like they were a fixture in the bar.
“Anyways, there we were, my aunt, Robert and Kasper Elliot,Max and myself, all lost. We didn’t know that the compass was broken, so we kept walking believing that by the end of the day we would reach the market, did out shopping, stop for a day and walk back to the village tomorrow. But like I said we ended up in the field, and before we know it the sun was down, and the market was nowhere near in our sight. My aunt, god bless her soul, went into a panic and started fretting about. She said “Where’s the market? We were supposed to be at the by now, why are we in this field? What do we do? Where are we? What do we do?” and we couldn’t do anything because none of us knew what to do.”
Finally our drinks came. The glasses were already sweating. My uncle took his glass, put it against his forehead for a bit to cool himself.
“But I couldn’t just let her panic like that, so I took her hands and said to her,”Auntie, don’t panic. We are just a little astray from the path. Let’s stay here for the night, and when the day comes we will go back the path we came and find the correct path.” She wanted to say something, but feeling my warmth she calmed down and agreed to stay in the field for the night. If I had known where we were exactly, I would have suggested to trek on the direction we were going. It would have wrecked us all, but it would have been better than spending the night in their midst. ”
He said and took a sip of gin and tonic.
“My aunt,for reasons unknown to me, she always calmed down and relaxed when she heard my voice. Even when she was in the height of a horrible panic, when she heard my voice she calmed down and relaxed when I told her that she is alright.And she was always prone to those panic attacks. The slightest thing always shot her nerves through the roof. And that day, she was at a point of panic so strong that you would have she would die of fright. She always worried about everything. And I always had to calm her down. We were inseparable in that manner. She could never be away from me because people feared of what she might do without me. But that’s something else.” He took another sip, paused for a second, looked at me and said
“I don’t know if I can talk about this in details. I’m sorry, but it just hurts to remember.”
“It’s okay. I knew most of what happened from the textbook. I just want to know what happened.”
At that, he he actually seemed loosened and looked relieved to know that I didn’t really care much for details of the event.
We didn’t really talk after that. Uncle kept sipping his gin and tonic, and I kept staring out the window. I couldn’t even remember why I even asked uncle to talk about his experience. After sometime, I couldn’t bare the silence so I asked him,
“So, uncle, that’s it?”
“Yes. That’s it.”
“But the story was that they attacked you guys.”
“That was a lie.”
“Why would they lie about that?”
“Who the hell cares? Maybe the government wanted to expand the land, maybe someone didn’t like them, maybe nothing about what I went through matters. The government wanted a war, and I gave them a real gem of an excuse to kill them.”
“I guess nothing matters, I wasn’t involved in it afterall.”
“Neither was I.”
“What do you mean?”
“When the war broke out I ran.”
“Oh.”
“Well, if you don’t mind, I have to go. Thank you for the drink.”
And like that my uncle went out. After he left I finished my tonic water and realizing that it was half past noon, went to the nearest diner and had my lunch.
