Sep 2012
The old man sighed and jammed his freshly rolled, freshly lit cigarette into the ash tray.
"Too many cigarettes before bedtime oft' keep an' old man like me up all night."
The young man put out his cigarette as well, gently weeping inside over the wasted tobacco.
"Aye, a youngin' like myself as well."
The conversation had been going slightly south ever since the young man made the mistake of asking about his counterparts first wife. "She died," he had said "One of them December o' 2012 suicides that plagued the big cities such as this."
The young man remembered how he had looked out the window at this point a bit too nostalgically.
"She was crazy," he had added "I knew it the day I slipped the ring on and I know it now."
They dropped the subject and began talking about The War, coincidentally another touchy subject.
"Most of my friends died, and if you've read your history books you know it was not courage or chivalry that killed them but the ignorance and fear that our country breathed when drafting all the young men."
He had escaped with his life, which he believed was garbage. he told of how he had hid in the sewers while the long thought peaceful Canadian's swarmed over the East coast. While his friends died he ate rats. While the war machine chugged he was cowering.
"Aye, I see how you looked at that stoke, though."
"Pardon?" The young man had been deep in thought of the conversation they had been having.
"How old are you anyway?"
"19 on the 9th."
"And still not a whisker on your chin, aye?"
"Aye."
He told of many more battles. Some he fought in, others he cowered under.
"And one, that I cowered over. I passed out in the helicopter, do-it-please-yah."
He told of his second wife, a bit more fondly and romantically than his first wife.
She had passed away not 8 months before the young man visited him for the first time and that was 6 months past.
He showed scars, from the prison camps.
He rolled cigarettes from his poke pouch.
He admitted forgetting the face of his father.
"Too many cigarettes before bedtime oft' keep an' old man like me up all night."
The young man put out his cigarette as well, gently weeping inside over the wasted tobacco.
"Aye, a youngin' like myself as well."
The conversation had been going slightly south ever since the young man made the mistake of asking about his counterparts first wife. "She died," he had said "One of them December o' 2012 suicides that plagued the big cities such as this."
The young man remembered how he had looked out the window at this point a bit too nostalgically.
"She was crazy," he had added "I knew it the day I slipped the ring on and I know it now."
They dropped the subject and began talking about The War, coincidentally another touchy subject.
"Most of my friends died, and if you've read your history books you know it was not courage or chivalry that killed them but the ignorance and fear that our country breathed when drafting all the young men."
He had escaped with his life, which he believed was garbage. he told of how he had hid in the sewers while the long thought peaceful Canadian's swarmed over the East coast. While his friends died he ate rats. While the war machine chugged he was cowering.
"Aye, I see how you looked at that stoke, though."
"Pardon?" The young man had been deep in thought of the conversation they had been having.
"How old are you anyway?"
"19 on the 9th."
"And still not a whisker on your chin, aye?"
"Aye."
He told of many more battles. Some he fought in, others he cowered under.
"And one, that I cowered over. I passed out in the helicopter, do-it-please-yah."
He told of his second wife, a bit more fondly and romantically than his first wife.
She had passed away not 8 months before the young man visited him for the first time and that was 6 months past.
He showed scars, from the prison camps.
He rolled cigarettes from his poke pouch.
He admitted forgetting the face of his father.
