Signing Off

The cold metal slowly warmed up in his shaking hands as he attempted to calm his racing heart and unsteady breathing. He could do this. No more chickening out. This was it. It was now or never for the last time. He paused long enough to draw in one more life giving breath before slowly looking up.

"What most people don't know about me...where to start?" he laughed, but it wasn't sincere, he didn't grin like he always had before, and his blue eyes remained untouched by it. Cold, determined. "I guess with the beginning, that's where most stories start. I don't want to break tradition, I've done that enough already, haven't I?" another pause, this time to nervously shift the object in his other hand. "Right, the beginning...well, before I was discovered I would stay with a group of natives. They were nice, like a family. But it wasn't long before unusual people started to come on big boats, bigger than any I had seen before. Shortly after that Finland saw me then the brother war came next. When I chose Iggy as my older brother, I thought he'd come live with me and my adopted family. But...hell" he stopped to take off his glasses and wipe the tears that had slowly formed in his eyes"I never expected that to happen! I wasn't allowed to see them anymore, and they were dubbed as 'savages'. Were they really the savages though? After all, they weren't the ones who accepted help from them, held a feast, waited for them to go to sleep then attacked, were they? My first family was gone. Iggy was away in Europe when it happened. I cried myself to sleep the entire time he was gone. When he came back I made sure I only cried when I was alone, after all, good children were seen but not heard, and I wanted to impress Iggy, even if his people had killed them.

So I grew up with Iggy's hand to guide me on the path of life. But he was away so much. And truthfully I got lonely, even with my rabbit that I was allowed to keep as company. I know that he hated going away so much, but he was still gone. When I was a little older and left alone once more I heard the first words about a revolution. They had been hushed and barely audible, at the time I didn't know why, it didn't take long for me to figure out why. I stayed up that night trying to figure out what it all meant. A few days later Iggy was back again and I decided to ask him about it, after all, he was older and that meant that he possessed all the answers in the world. He had dropped a dish as soon as the word left my lips. It was as though all of my innocence had died right then. He quickly explained that it was something to never be mentioned and it was best to forget about it. Only I didn't. Not long after I found out from a few other whispered conversations between colonialists what a revolution was, and it seemed appealing. A way to prove that I wasn't a child that could be controlled like a puppet anymore.

So I had my revolution. The founding fathers wrote up the Declaration of Independence and helped create a new type of government. But they weren't satisfied with just fame. Some wanted more. Much more. Not wealth. But me. I was only a teenager...I hadn't known what their advances had foreshadowed...all I had known was that if I lost them the war would be lost. So I allowed myself to be used. A broken toy that was soon discarded for wives and others who had more experience or demanded their commitment. I pushed those memories to the back of my mind, to be forgotten. Washington was the one who first stopped using me. He was also the only one who apologized, so I helped him win favor over the others to become the first leader.

One day he brought a girl in to meet me. I still remember it like it was yesterday. Her name was Charlotte, she had been wearing a pink dress with a matching bonnet, the fashion for women back then, and her dark brown hair had been pinned up with a white ribbon. She had smiled warmly, making little wrinkles show up by her green eyes. A few days later we had started dating. I had spent most of our relationship trying to convince myself I loved her and could spend the rest of her life at least together. But a year later when we were engaged I realized I couldn't go through with it. I woke up early one morning and found myself a quill and parchment to write a note to her explaining that I was leaving, and she had been a wonderful person, but I just couldn't marry her. I left it on her kitchen table, packed my clothes and some food in a pack before leaving on a horse towards the western horizon. I'm not exactly sure what drew my west. It was like a magnet was pulling me, or I was looking for something that wasn't there. I think it was a little bit of both. Uncharted land had drawn many to my lands, and I guess in the end it drew even me into its trap.