Lies travel faster than the truth

II. The soldier's minute.

Late night. I was in Garrisons before I hit the road to home. Lit a cigarette. I heard some noise coming from upstairs. Check my weapon once again and slowly go upstairs.

There was no one to see. I kept holding my gun with my right hand. I heard the small door closing. I knocked once. Heard Thomas' voice.
"Who is it?" He loudly said.
"I'm May. May Marlowe. May I come in?"
There was a death silence for a few seconds then he responded :
"Yes of course." I removed my hand from the gun and slowly opened the door.
Thomas was sitting on the bed and just slowly turned to me :

"Lies travel faster t'an the trut' May." He was devastated;wasn't the first time i saw him like that. This time it looked different somehow. I pulled a chair and sat against him.

"Tommy did you spoke to someone about it.?" I took my coat off and hang it behind me. He started at me. His look was empty.

"About w'at?" He held his head and didn't look at me.

"About your nightmares in the tunnels in France.?" He lift his head up and gazed at me with those empty eyes staring at the wall and he starts talking:

"Sometimes it lasts all night. And I lie 'ere and I listen to t'e shovels and t'e picks against t'at wall t'ere...and I pray t'e sun will come up wit' t'e curtains before t'ey break t'rough. No I don't pray... I 'ope...and sometimes it 'appens. T'e sun beats t'em...but mostly...the shovels beat the sun."

The truth is the War changed us all. It wasn't easy to move on. All the traumatic memories and events pops up every time. I listened to him.

"After t'e War, yo began experiencing symptoms of Shell shock : frightening nightmares, flashbacks, and 'allucinations, all of w'ich yo kept to yerself?" I lean on the chair and looked at the room. It wasn't much of a place one bed two small commodes and a window.

He nodded without looking at me. I listened to him and shed a tear. I removed it quickly with a hand move then continued:

"It must've be so 'ard t'ere in France. As I know t'ere was a term about it." I was trying to remember the word while Tommy just mumbled it still looking at that wall waiting something to get through it.

"Clay-kicker. I am a clay-kicker." He repeatedly said it never loosing his eyes from that wall. Seems to me like he was waiting something to come out of it, yet nothing happens.

"Oh. Yes exactly basically a tunneller in the War. Yo tunnelled under enemy lines and set explosives." I spoke he lift his head and gazed at me...

"It was t'e most claustrophobic, 'orrific, dark... job yo could possibly 'ave...like t'e worst of t'e worst, yo know." He said calmly.

He held my palms in his hands; I hoped to take him out from this trance he was.

"And it seems to me t'at yo turn t'is trauma into t'is kind of relentless ambition, because yo could 'ave died at any point t'ere." looked him in the eyes they were empty like he was looking through my soul. Tommy rubbed his eyes.

"I am not afraid of death...cause I am dead May."

"It's time to move on Thomas. The war is over."

His hands were cold; he lifted his head slowly looked at me than his look switched to that wall again like waiting something to happen...I continued still holding his palms.

"Tommy, yo've got enough trouble, right? T'e whiskey and the smoke." I stared at him still holding his hands cold as ice and sweaty.

"I can smell it Tommy we use to call it "my sweet'eart" it was meant to releave the shell shock yet it makes yo want more and more till yo can't stop."

He looked at me with those big blue eyes full of sorrow and pain.

"Why you care May. I am already dead inside." Thomas wasn't feeling good he was in a strange state of mind i would say locked between then and now.

All of a sudden he collapsed in bed... still mumbling about the war experience. I took my coat and left; slowly closing the door behind me.