Coming Home [H.S.]

prologue

WWII, Doncaster, UK, 1942-

Once you've gotten close enough to the veil of death to touch it, people would say that you develop a sixth sense for it. A person doesn't get to see moments of the other side without coming back with scratches and bruises. Scars even. Cats often approach those who are close to the final destination doors of death, they've been close to death, but with their nine lives every time they make it back to the living. They still know though. Often people before death can feel a pit in their stomach right before they make their final departure. They just know. They've been close to it before, but there's always a feeling of knowing it for the last time.

I could almost smell death, I could see it in a person, even if I didn't know why. I could look them in the eye and the pit grew, not necessarily that I knew that they would die, but more of the feeling that they weren't all there. I could see it in their paling skin, the way they breathed, their walk. I could almost see death follow a person, stuck to them like an unwanted aroma. The room would run cold, my skin would tingle slightly, and I couldn't help but stare at them. Almost as if there was something looming above them, holding the axe of execution. I didn't always know what it meant in the moment, why I felt so off and intimidated. For all I knew it was the sixth sense I had, slowly telling my subconscious that indeed death was following them like an old friend.

There was no perfect way to explain it to someone, seeing what death looking like, what the stench looked like. They were still alive, for now, but there was an empty darkness to their eyes. They didn't have the same vibrate color a person of the living had. They became grey, not just the way they stared off, but also how they lived their remanding amount of time.

I knew that someone was going to die because they lost the color of the living.

Painted pastels to bleeding grays.

I could never explain it well enough for people who haven't experienced this to understand, so I began to keep it to myself. I couldn't explain to them how death felt, waking up and feeling nothing but just that, nothing. The feeling of the pure stubble panic of calmness it brings, not in a good way. Your chest feels tight, you know that it's there, but yet your eyes are so blind to seeing the true form of it. I always wondered if the closer you went to crossing the other side if you got to see and feel more of it. I knew that others had this sixth sense not as strongly as I, but I also wondered if others have crossed over so far only to be pulled back, allowing them to physically see death.

At this point I started to believe that seeing it would be better than what I had now. I could put the anxiety I had whenever I felt it away because I knew that there wouldn't be any uncertainty, just like how I was feeling right now. I wouldn't have to go off on a hunch or a thought, or go through all the denial and heartfelt emotions, I could just see death and accept fate. Cut through all the unnecessary things. I didn't need the uncertainty, the worry, the pain, the confusion, the intimidation, I just needed the facts presented in front of me. Cut the bullshit. I don't do complicated, I do straight and simple things. I stopped warning people, it made things no longer simple. It became too difficult to defend and prove.

I knew the moment he walked through the kitchen picking up his duffel bag I knew he was going to never walk through the front door again. His slanted brown hair covering his forehead, his blue eyes darting from one place to another, his white knuckled grip, clutching the handle of the worn out brown bag, the grey in his complexion shining through. His boots seemed more heavy as they walked across the paneled floor, his smile that was usually so full of soul seeming to fade as well. I knew he had it plastered on his face for me and our younger brother, but even I could tell it was fake.