The Ghost of Him |WWII Frerard AU|

-2-

The café is completely abandoned when I step inside, the smell of stale coffee and bread still permeating the air around me.  It's dark and eerily silent, devoid of all human life.  The shop doesn't even open up for another hour, but lucky for me, I got stuck with the morning shift.  I get the privilege of unlocking the doors, counting the food supplies, and brewing the coffee.  How fun, right?

There should be another worker scheduled to come in with me, but whoever that is, they're late.  Sure, I can do all of the tasks by myself, but it's always nice to have a bit of company, you know?  It gets boring counting the bread and muffins and brewing eleven different pots of coffee all the time.  I like having someone to talk to, just to break the buzzing silence that always seems to follow me around.

Then the bell on the door signals someone's arrival, and I turn to see my coworker Ray hurrying into the café.

"Sorry I'm late,"  he says, completely out of breath as he throws his coat on the rack.  "My ma would just not stop talkin' about that war stuff in Europe.  I swear she's losin' it just thinkin' about it."

"It's got her infected, too?"  I ask.  The coffee's finally beginning to brew, filling the air with the sharp scent of fresh coffee beans.  "Pa's just kinda pissed off about it, actually.  Ma doesn't seem too worried about the Allies."

"You're one of the lucky ones then, Gerard."  Ray flashes me a smile.  His hair is an absolute trainwreck, but I decide not to comment on it.  He probably spent an hour trying to perfect it, only to have the biting wind ruin it in an instant.  But I'm not one to judge.  I'm particular about my hair, myself.

"If I'm bein' honest,"  Ray continues, pinning his nametag to the pocket of his shirt, "the whole ordeal's kinda gettin' on my nerves, too.  I mean, what kinda wack job do you have to be to wanna control all those countries?  And to do it with an overpowered military?  It's nuts.  I don't get it."

"You're not the only one."

Ray shakes his head.  I swear I've never seen such disappointment in his eyes.  "Germans.  I'm tellin' ya."

And that marks the end of that conversation.  I can't lie and say I'm not relieved.

There's still work to be done around the café before we can officially open for the day.  We need to make sure the mugs are polished--I leave that to Ray since he was the last to arrive.  We need to keep the coffee fresh and hot.  We need to sort the selections of muffins and breads on the counter for customers to purchase.  We need to do one last sweep of the floor, one last scrub of the tables, just to make sure everything is perfectly clean and to our liking.  This café has built a reputation in town, and we don't want to be the ones responsible for ruining it.

While we work, Ray keeps the radio playing.  Sometimes popular songs blast through the speakers, to which Ray pretends to perform a show with the mop he's holding, and other times, it's the local news.  Not once do we hear talk of the war in Europe, and in all honesty, I'm surprised.  From what I heard this morning, I was sure something would come up, but no.  Nothing.  Nothing at all, and I can't tell if I'm relieved at the fact or even more worried by it.

As I pour myself a small cup of coffee--I've deserved it after all this prep work--Ray heaves a sigh and leans against the front counter.  He already looks exhausted, and the day is only just beginning.

"We haven't gotten to know each other very well yet, Gerard,"  he says.  "We've been coworkers for, what, maybe two months?  I barely know anything about you.  I know you have a brother, though.  What's he like?"

I smile behind my cup of coffee.  "He's nice,"  I say.  "He's definitely what you'd call eccentric, too, but that's what I love about him.  Few years younger than me.  Goin' to college right now.  He walks me here every day, then goes off to his classes."

"Sounds like a classic brotherly love,"  Ray remarks with a grin.  "Say, have either of you filled out one of those draft forms for joining the military?"

All conversations always seem to lead back to the war in some form or another.  I knew the blissful silence wouldn't last forever.

"No, we haven't."

"Lucky."  Ray backs away from the counter, moving to peer out the window and down the abandoned streets.  "My ma said she'd force me if the war got any worse.  She thinks I'll be a help to the fight, but really, I think she just wants to get rid of my ass.  Get me out of the house, you know?"

I only nod.  There's nothing more I can contribute to this conversation.  The mere idea of the war scares me, rattles me deep to the core, so actually joining the fight?  I'd be dead the second I set foot on the field.

"She even told me she'd make me volunteer if my draft number wasn't called.  She's nuts, I'm tellin' ya.  What kinda mother does that to her own son?  Don't you think a mother would be beggin' and pleadin' for her son not to march off into certain death like that?  Maybe not, but that sure as hell makes sense to me."

Ray continues to ramble on and on about the war, but as for me, his voice slowly but surely starts to fade away into a distant hum.  I thought I'd left all my stress and fears back at home, but now they're all flooding back.  Signing up for the draft is unavoidable.  I'm not sure how I've managed to dodge it for this long, but soon enough, I won't have a choice.  Mikey won't have a choice, either.  We're both young men, the perfect age to be plucked from our homes and shipped overseas, right into the heat of the battle.  Training for maybe a couple of months, and then, it's right to the fight.  How in the world is two months enough time to teach men, who've never even seen a gun before in their life, how to fight in a battle to the death?  It doesn't make sense.

My thoughts are derailing again.  No wonder I'm so anxious all the time.

The best I can do is try to push the whole ordeal out of my mind.  Nothing major has happened in the war since June.  It's been almost six months since then.  I'm not signed up for the draft yet.  Neither is Mikey, and it'll be even better if we can both avoid it until this awful war blows over.  I can't fight.  Mikey can't fight, and I most certainly don't want to watch him be shipped off to some training camp, and then to the war itself.  We're not built for something like that.  I can barely kill a bug without feeling guilty.  Hell, Mikey can't even look at a bug without panicking.  The war would tear us apart from the inside out.

There I go rambling with my thoughts again.  I need to stop before I give myself a heart attack.

The radio is still playing as opening hour begins to roll around.  The station has switched to broadcast a sports event by then--I don't pay attention to what it actually is, and it doesn't matter, because as the first customer strolls through the front door, a new voice cuts through on the radio.  I don't have to worry about giving myself a heart attack anymore.  The broadcaster does it for me.

"We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin.  The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by air."

~~~~~
Super early update because my laptop at home is currently shitting itself so I'm using my school laptop in the middle of class whoops.  Hopefully my own gets fixed before Saturday and Sunday

A little bit of a short chapter, but the action is kicking off >:) Strap yourselves in people, we're in for a ride

School gets out tomorrow holla.  More time to write and waste my life away

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