Have you ever bought a one way ticket to your demise? We have struck once and again. We are many but they are more. We are determined to end them and they are determined not to be ended and even more determined to end us. But we had no means to end them and we had to become the means to end them. I made my pick and...
Well, when you stare death in the face, one plus one is easy math. The water was not easy to bear, the cold bit to the bone and made the pain of my wounds unbearable but eventually I made it to dry land. I was weak and hungry but afraid the more as I walked on the land of the men whose lives I took and I knew that they saw me as an enemy never to be forgiven and worth of the most painful of deaths. I dragged myself slowly hoping to stumble upon something to eat and eventually I ran into a dumpster. Within it was stale bread that would satisfy the hunger. At the side was newspaper dated 1st November 1944. I had been at sea for a week. But that was not important as underneath it, I revealed a piece of glass and upon it was my reflection. My hands shook as I touched a face burnt beyond recognition. I had jumped out of the plane but not early enough to escape the flames of the explosion. My left eye wasn't injured as I thought but it was missing. But instead of bringing anguish, this brought relief as I would be able to walk amongst the crowd not as a man with a face like the enemies', but as a man without a face.
I know by now you may be asking what happened. I'm sure you are well acquainted with the Pearl Harbour attack, and I, well I am a Kamikaze Soldier who just happened to survive and is roaming the streets of Hawaii. I had to dump my clothing as it did shout that I was a foreigner and I was lucky enough to come across some rags that I put to use. To my advantage, it was quite common for someone to lack a home in these parts of the world thus I did not attract much attention and people in these parts has quite the habit of throwing away food thus taking care of the hunger wasn't quite an issue. The one and most pressing problem was the fast approaching winter. With it came a cold that bit like a dog infected by rabies and it did devour like a beast that had gone quite sometime with nothing to bite. Each night cooler than the last and a just enough reminder that the next will be even worse. But during normal times, these conditions should have surfaced sooner and boy were we lucky, but our luck was thinning, and it was thinning fast.
It was the 9th of November when the snow started falling, temperatures were unforgiving especially since I had made it to the main land and although I had picked up some warm clothes at the garbage dump, surviving these kinds of temperatures are no joke. But when you come to think of it, death would not be so bad after all. I was supposed to die in the attack either way but when you have a young family dieing doesn't seem fair to them at all. Yes the government will take care of them and give them tonnes of money, cater for the children's education but will it fill the void of lacking a husband? Will it take the place of a father? Will money love them as I did? Or give answers to questions that required actions and to words? I asked myself these questions and realized that the words a person very dear to me once said were very true. She did tell me that happiness and joy are very different things, one temporary and given by material things, the other long-lasting but comes from satisfaction of the soul.
Thoughts plagued me, the desire to see my family crippled me, but I was a needy man with no means, a dying man clinging to the last thread of hope. It is true that problems make time go slower, but thinking about how to solve the problems cause time to have no meaning. But little did I know that the future was to be sweetly hope-crushing and life nothing short of utterly ruthless.
In these times of the year, people don't really go out and Seattle didn't have so many people really. I did find some places to sleep and scour for food and one day a I was asleep something rather life-changing happened. Just a normal morning, still sleepy and comfortably enjoying the comfort of the snow under a bridge, the pain of the frostbite was sweeter than the sound of a happy bird's melody and how rude human beings can be to interrupt such a nice and calming morning! I understand that people do everything they can to survive, but why pick on an old lady? And as a man raised right by his mother, I couldn't just sit and do nothing about it. And truth be told I had been long since I whooped someone's ass! The old lady offered me a place to stay but I had not spoken to a single soul this far and I was not about to start. I may be one with no face but the accent was a total giveaway and I wasn't about to just be so dumb.
The lady did feel indebted to me and from that day on, she would come by every morning with something to eat and something to drink. And every day she did plead that I take shelter in her home. A few weeks gone and she did seem to have found some company who I came to understand to be her only child, a daughter to be specific, about two or three years younger than I was and on Christmas eve they came in the morning and the old lady said that she would not leave unless I accompanied her. And under that bridge she shared with me the story of her life. She did get married quite late and her husband's only wish was to get a son to carry his name forward. Her first child happened to be a daughter and with time her husband's desire became her own and her daughter did wish for one to fill the void she felt in her but life does not always give us what we desire ey? Her husband died and so did the hope of a son as age was catching up with her and the void in them grew with each day. Each moment in the castle that her husband left became unbearable and that evening I did go with her, not as a friend, not as a man who fought for her, but as a son. And that very night she felt a peace in her that she had not felt in a long time and she did rest in eternal peace.
