redamancy

V.

Five years after the war and not much had happened besides my relocation back to my hometown in Massachusetts. It was 'forty-eight when I had been relocated, May of 'forty-eight to be exact. Although I wasn't happy about my relocation I made the best of it. Jack had also been transferred back home which was fortunate for me because I had heard from Nathaniel's mother that he died during a battle started by the North Koreans in the Korean War.

Jack and I attended his funeral on the third of July. Jack said a few words about him; mostly he spoke of when Nathaniel and him patrolled the base back in Dachau and how Nathaniel always wanted to eat his oatmeal.

When I was called up to the podium I talked about how I grew up with him. Nathaniel had been my neighbor since I was seven years old, but I never really talked to him because I was too focused on girls and my reputation as the most popular boy in school. Nathaniel and I became friends during the basic training we endured before we got to go in the army. He was my roommate.

Nathaniel didn't become a Colonel like me though. The farthest he got was Major, but that's still a successful position in the army.

After Nathaniel's death I left the army. I just felt overwhelmed by the amount of death's I had seen and the people I'd lost including Mina and Sarah. I missed Mina and Sarah very much, it hurt to even think about Mina and I felt bad for Sarah because I was sure she and Nathaniel's child would never find out what happened to him.

I'd seen too much, it was time for a change.

In 'fifty-one I picked up and moved to Los Angeles, California. I picked up a job in a ford factory at first, so I could save up enough money for my real estate agent license, once I got enough money I ditched the job, took some classes on real estate, passed the exam and got my license.

When I first started real estate I wasn't sure it would be my dream job, considering the fact I was a colonel and was too used to bossing other people around for years, but I made the best of it. It paid the bills, so I couldn't complain too much.

I did truly enjoy California. It was a good change from the cold climate of Massachusetts and the people here were always very kind unlike the Bostonians I once knew. They were also more cheerful and free. Boston always had a grim aura, but California was where dreams came true, the land of opportunity.

_  _  _

Today after work I went to the market to pick up a loaf of bread and a case of coca-cola. I didn't realize it would be so packed, but I also didn't realize it was the day before the fourth of July. I must've not realized it because I hadn't celebrated it since my time in the military. It's not that I didn't care about America's independence it's just that I was always busy or had no one to celebrate it with.

As I finished gathering my items of choice I headed over to a checkout station and waited in line behind an elderly woman with a cart full of groceries. I knew it would take an eternity before I got to pay for my items, but I just sucked it up and shut my mouth.

"This line looks very long." I heard a voice say from behind me.

I turned around briefly to face the voice noticing it was a woman, but nothing else before I turned my attention back to the line ahead of us.

"Want a smoke? For the wait?" She asked from behind me. I guess she was talking to me.

I turned around for the second time and looked at the woman once more. She was wearing a large hat, so I couldn't see her face until she looked away from the inside of her bag to look up at me, handing me a single smoke.

"Thanks." I replied quickly, studying her features for the longest time.

She had this incredible long curly black hair, olive colored skin and very pretty brown eyes. She looked extremely young, but she was dressed too nice to be a school girl.

"Light?" She smiled at me and slid one of the matches in her hand across the box in her other one.

I nodded instantaneously and held my smoke in the open flame before putting it up to my mouth. I took a few puffs of the cigarette and exhaled the extra smoke out into the air while I watched as she lit her smoke.

She looked like someone I'd seen before, but it was hard to conjure up an image of someone I knew. I didn't have many girl-friends and I never had any that wore makeup and big hats, but I only knew one girl with olive skin

"Does your name happen to be Mina?" I took another puff while I stared at her intensely.

"How did you know that, I haven't been called that since the summer of.." She trailed off, her brown irises becoming as big as dimes.

"Mina it is really you!" I dropped my groceries almost immediately and kissed her all over her face.

I'm sure everyone was looking at us in awe, or giving us a dirty scowl. Apparently when my coke bottles dropped onto the tile, all of them broke except one and my cigarette fell on top of the plastic bread bag which almost created a fire. I also was next in line to be checked out and I had been holding up the line, but it was Mina.

It wasn't any girl it was my girl.

//

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii
I don't have too much to say at the moment. thanks for reading/commenting etc.
-veronica