The Guard To My Sanctuary

Chapter 11

Marco

Spending the night with Elm through the phone was insufficient at best. I had grown accustomed to him sleeping in my arms and found myself tossing and turning as he slept the whole night through. He snored lightly in my sleep and it had become my lullaby and he acted as a pillow. I had grown so used to him holding my shirt when I walked I found myself tripping when I walked due to me overcompensating the amount of weight I was walking with. I got used to the smell of him flooding my nose, he no longer smelled of cotton candy and was even revolted by the smell of it to the point of being physically ill. We all learned that the hard way when we went to golden corral and he walked by a child with a cone of the stuff. He looked at the boy and doubled over throwing up on the pastry counter. We had a lot of angry pastry chefs to explain to.

Elm smelled like spearmint body soap and whatever spray he bought from Victoria Secret. His skin was so soft and he subtly shimmered from the pearlescent glitter in his lotion. He was so kind and nervous almost like a deer taking in its new surroundings. I doubted he knew it but his facial expressions were priceless around people he got comfortable with. I had to push those thoughts down as I walked into my classroom to teach my students as a stand-in for another instructor who had gone on maternity leave.

"Hello everyone I'm Sergeant Tafferty, from this point on I will be teaching this class for well I don't know but I'm here so 'Xiànzài ràng wǒmen kāishǐ', "shifting into Mandarin. I spoke six languages which included Mandarin, Korean, German, Spanish, and Arabic. I had many offers for jobs if I choose to get out but I hadn't really seen a reason to leave since I was getting a steady paycheck and allowances for food and housing. Everyone put on their headsets and began translating the information that was set up for practice. I moved around the room helping anyone who looked like they were in need. The job was pretty easy and the area was good so I could see myself enjoying this position for the time being.

"Excuse me, sir," an Asian presenting girl spoke with her hand in the air. I walked over to her and smiled.

"Wǒmen zài zhèlǐ bù huì shuō yīngyǔ," I told her that we didn't speak English during class.

"Xiānshēng, nǐ néng bāngzhù wǒ ma,"  she repeated as well as completed her statement.

"Nǐ zěnme shuō zhōngwén de rendezvous," she asked me how to say rendezvous.

"Xiàng nǐ gāngcái shuō de," I told her there was no translation before walking to another student with his hand up in the air. Throughout the course of the class, I answered many questions through the day which wasn't too bad since the class was more advanced in their studies and only needed me for a few things. They went marching to lunch then came back till four in the afternoon and I filled out paperwork and gave the assigned study work before leaving out to talk to my Commander who asked me into his office.

"Hello Colonel Josephson," I said walking in and standing at attention.

"Oh calm all of that down, I asked you in here just so I could introduce myself to you," he said standing up in his uniform and shook my hand. I shook his and then sat in one of his chairs.

"So how was your first class," he asked the scratched his sandy blond hair. His hairline had seemed to start receding.

"It was fine, everything went smoothly sir, all I did was answer a few easy questions and showed a few how to conjugate some verbs properly," I said wanting to get out of the traditionally decorated room and call Elm to make sure his visit to the DMV went smoothly. I knew he didn't want to go to that crowded building and hoped he didn't have a panic attack. It was a necessary trip though because he needed a form of identification. He really needed to catch up to everyone in his age group so that he wouldn't feel so behind in life.