After Dark (On Hold)

An Explanation

It was time to act. I had to know what happened all those years ago. I sat on my bed, my heart fighting with my mind. My dad will never tell me. He'll just push me away. And I don't think I can bear the look on his face when I confront him. No, that can't stop me. I need to know the truth. He has to understand. Having convinced myself, I stood up. As the doubts collided back I forced myself to walk across the wooden floor, down the steps, and to my father who was reading an eight year old newspaper. Anything to distract him from the men pacing the streets behind the curtain-drawn windows. Not to mention, it was probably one of the last newspapers that had been delivered to us, another thing that I could barely explain.

"Having trouble sleeping?" my dad assumed, never lifting an eye of his paper.

I didn't bother answering. There was no need to make small talk. Instead I just spit it out, as if the taste of the words in my mouth were too awful to bear. And they were. "Tell me! Tell me about that year the soldiers came, what happened to mom, and Elise's parents. You have kept it all to yourself, and so has everyone else. But I can't go all my life not knowing!"

He sat there in silence. I wanted to say more, but I knew I shouldn't. So instead, I waited for him to react.

"You should be trying to get some rest," He said sighing. Alhough he knew I wasn't going to give up so quickly.

"Don't you realize that that's what keeps me up at night?" I hissed through my teeth, trying not to wake Elise.

He hesitated, "I don't know as much as you think. Not about the wars, or the collapsing nation. Our small town was so secluded, we didn't hear very much after the TV and internet stopped working." I was a little surprised that he didn't argue any more then he did, but he hadn't opened up to me yet. All that he was saying I already knew.

"Please," I pleaded, feeling more hopeless than ever. It was unlike me to feel so vulnerable and desperate. "Tell me the story the way you saw it. I don't want to hear the facts that you read from the papers."

He looked at me. In a way that showed me that he understood. I wanted to know how he felt, to hear the story the way that he had lived it. I wanted to understand.

Then he started again, and said slowly, "The country was in a panic. We were on the edge of war with Russia.. or maybe it was Korea," He looked confused only for a moment before he moved on. "Our town was almost self-sufficient, so it didn't seem to effect us. We heard about what was happening for about a year, but it didn't feel real. Not until the satellites were destroyed and the internet stopped working. Soon the banks stopped delivering mail. We didn't know why, and we didn't have any way of finding out." I listened intently, eating up every word. In a way he was making up for the years that he hadn't explained any of the things that I craved to know. "Then one day, just as we were getting used to life without technology, or knowing what was happening in the world, they came."

"The soldiers?" I asked, but the answer was obvious.

He nodded. "We all gathered outside and by our windows to see what all the commotion was about. I remember one man walking confidently up to a soldier, asking who they were, and why they were marching into our town. The soldier swung his arm, pushing him to the side without flinching. The man's mouth was bleeding and with a startled look on his face, he sat himself up on the ground, brushing off the hard gravel that had stuck into his palm. He wasn't hurt very badly, but it was enough to scare most of us. So we just stood there, frightened. Most of the mothers had taken their children into the house and told them to hide by then. It was like nothing we had ever seen before, Katya. But it only got worse." I fidgeted in my seat and he waited for me to put my attention back on him. "You see, that man was your uncle. Your mother ran to him to see if he was alright. I told her to wait, but I couldn't stop her from running out. She kneeled next to him, putting her hand against his bruised and bloody face. A wave of anger must have gone through her because at that moment she turned to the soldier closest to her and yelled behind him, 'How could you do this?' He had been facing away from her, and hadn't even acknowledged her, so she only got angrier. Without thinking, she wrapped her hand around a small jagged rock and threw it at his back. He swung around, lifting his gun. I saw the look on her face and I could see that she immediately regretted her actions. I began to run towards her, afraid of what might happen next, but someone pulled me back." He stopped talking. It was too hard for him to say.

"That's how she died, isn't it?" I asked in a whisper. I looked into his eyes with sympathy.

He avoided my gaze and shifted his eyes to the floorboards. "I could have saved her," He mumbled into his shirt collar. He was silent now. He couldn't go on. I wanted to say that there was nothing he could have done. That he shouldn't blame himself. Instead I just sat there quietly, going over what he said again and again in my head.

I wanted to ask him more. I wanted to know what happened to Elise's parents and if he ever learned why the soldiers came. I wanted to know why on my walks to school I would see the soldiers shift behind the buildings, and why they paced the streets during the night. Still, I knew that it was time to stop. It wasn't likely that he would want to share more of the past that night.

After a long silence he repeated, "You should get some rest." I nodded, and lifted myself from my seat. After arriving in my room I wedged myself into the bed with Elise, who was still sound asleep. I expected that after hearing so much about my past, that had once been a mystery, I wouldn't be able to fall sleep. But to my surprise, my mind was finally clear. My thoughts were silent. All I could hear were the distant footsteps outside my window. So I counted them, like a child would have counted sheep. And I drifted of into a much needed sleep.