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| Blue Eyes |
By:
Gillian Wong |
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When they were small, he had often played soldiers with her, and both won equally in their pretend battles and pretend fights. They had used old rags as pretend bandages, and she would often change roles in the middle of the game and become a nurse to take care of him.
Now, however, they were grown up, and they weren’t playing pretend anymore.
There wasn’t much to say really, after everything’s been said and done. He was going off to war, and she was staying and that was that. She knew she wouldn’t be able to stop him anyway.
There were no tears, no crying, no whining. There was only a slight frown when he boarded the train; a few crinkles in her forehead. And when he chose a seat, it was still next to the window, but it was more so that he wouldn’t be bored, rather than to get one last glimpse of her.
They exchanged a quick kiss through the gap of the window, and that was it. No sobbing, no frantic sealings of mouth, no nothing.
No anything.
And then he left. Just like that. And she was left alone.
“Regiment 19 dismissed!” James saluted smartly, body held straight, arms properly positioned. It had been a month since he had been deported, and he had already gone through many battles.
More than enough battles.
Nevertheless, they had just been granted a stay near one of the main hospitals –James hadn’t bothered catching the name –and were now having a mini holiday, if you will.
He had been visiting many of the hospital’s soldiers, and now was one of the times that he would make a round.
Crash!
He skipped hastily out of the way, just as a soldier, who was shuddering violently on the floor, looking in slightly disturbed silence as the nurses in the area plopped the fallen man back into the wheelchair, wheeling him back to a room.
It was then that he saw her. Dark brown hair, so dark that it melded into the night skies, and a face that was lit by a tiny, tiny touch of candlelight.
But the thing that had caught him most were her eyes. They were blue, but not a cliché ocean blue, or even the sky blue that was so often talked about, but a light, light blue that reminded him of the shimmer of water at dawn. They stared at each other for a while, but were quickly distracted by their own respective comrades.
That night he pulled her aside, into an old, old room, kissing her on the lips.
“Your name?”
“Jane. It’s Jane.”
And it was forbidden, he knew, but really, there was not much for it. There was nothing for him out there, and here, here in this camp, he had found something. He knew that he would not let go of it soon.
Even months later, they had kept their little thing up. Even though they were constantly separated from each other again and again, James always knew where to find her, and his regiment was always ordered to that particular hospital.
It wasn’t until six months later, near the end of the war before he received a telegram.
He was to go home.
He stared at the piece of parchment, seeing yet unseeing at the same time. Then he walked to the office where Jane was, where she often took her tea, with the other nurses. The room fell silent when he walked in, but Jane, seeing his face, excused herself quickly, disappearing with him to yet another room.
They entered, Jane closing the door behind her.
“I’m going home.” And the tone was bland, empty, as if the person who had said it hadn’t accepted the fact yet. Jane looked into James’ eyes. Correction: James hadn’t accepted the fact yet.
“When?” and her voice was soft.
“The day after tomorrow.” And he shook himself, and gradually the fog in his eyes cleared a little, and Jane nodded. He understood.
They said nothing.
“I better go pack, then,” he said, and there was an awkward pause before she answered.
“Yes, you better go.” The click of the door was the only reply she got, and she stood alone in the darkness. And on the other side of the door, James walked away.
In the next two days they did not bump into each other, by coincidence of sheer deliberate avoidance neither knew. On the last day, however, he went to seek her and for the second time in a week he found her, but this time it wasn’t in an office, and this time she wasn’t surrounded by companions. This time they were alone.
This time, there was nothing to say.
If anyone had found them in that little room, lined with tiny cobwebs, and paved with wooden planks as its floor, they would have been recognized as adolescents, the way that they stood across from each other.
Jane moved first, embracing him delicately. He stiffened, then placed his arms fragilely around her body. Trying to memorize the scene and storing it in his head.
They parted with a kiss and one more look into each other’s eyes. They had spent much time together, and the memory would not fade, they knew. They would love each other from afar, but they led different lives outside of this world. Outside of this universe of destruction, of pain, of suffering.
Outside, they were strangers.
Outside, their relationship was nothing.
He turned away then, after memorizing her blue, blue eyes, blue as the baby breath he’d see outside the hospital, day after day, when he had been sick. When he had thought he was dying.
He turned away, and then he was gone.
Traveling back home took only a matter of two days, much lesser than the time it took to get to the war itself. Then, it had taken four days, but it had seemed much shorter. He had not wanted to go to war.
Yet, it seemed strange for him to want to go back to home now.
But when he walked down the familiar brown dirt path, to that familiar flower garden, filled with roses and pansies and forget-me-nots, his feet walked down that little bit faster. And when he saw her, her hair shining golden under the sun, and her eyes as brown as the bricks on their house, he gained that little bit more strength to push away the fence.
Click.
She looked up, startled. And he walked towards her and swept her into a kiss. Holding her against him, reveling in this precious being that he had so missed.
And in the back of his mind he forgot about blue eyes… |
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