Ghosts' of November

Chapter 12: Lucky Day

> For one day to begin; does another have to end? I've tried to sleep, laying in bed with eyes so tired they almost hurt. I've become so lonely I'm beginning to remember how it feels to be angry. I am always amazed by how much emotion is lost in the silence. If your dreams feel more like reality than reality does; then are you really dreaming? Sometimes the dreams have no voices, like the monsters that have been lost to a black and white world. The world was locked down all except what was allowed to be open. The town has become silent as the world waits holding her breath. I'll never understand how one man has different rights than another when they have the same responsibility. It seemed everyone had lost their smile somewhere.

> It was one of those mornings when the sun refused to come out of the clouds, and the wind felt more wet than cold. I could only be out of the apartment for so few things, that I made sure I did those few things as often as possible. I needed milk, but i couldn't buy it from the corner store, only the name brand supermarket. I would always choose to walk. I remember the day Mr. Davis introduced the class to Pandora's box. He tried to teach us it was her curiosity that opened the box, but I never saw it that way. Why was it hope, that was left in some jar with a lid that not even time could remove? How was it that all the worst parts of who we become were released? I believe Pandora was jealous; she wanted to be the only gift.

$ Our lives often seem to be a reflection of Pandora and her box. The parts of emotion we can't control, control every action we become. All the while we seem to have lost hope as time keeps us prisoners in a world full of paradoxes. The walk home seems to pass without time having to move as morning now is in full bloom. Silence had been replaced by the busy steps of the world, and fear was on every screen. Once inside I kept the TV off as the news was nothing more than re-runs of what they had said yesterday. There was a letter that I would have to read, I thought I knew what it would say. Robert had far too often spoken about all the changes The Old Man had made, as if it could change anything.

> Khrysti's letter was angry, and it made sense. Robert's letter would be too precise for emotion, but emotional nonetheless. He thought he knew who I was even though he lost track of who I had become. I tried to pretend that I wanted to sleep and needed a nap. With the music turned low, I tried to turn out the lights. Who was I kidding there would be no sleep. Behind that door lay the promise I never kept. Robert was the same friend in the end as he was in the beginning. His friendship was the same, but he wasn't. I never had the courage to ask why. But he told me anyways in one of his damned letters. He spoke of our childhood like it was something worth remembering. He spoke as if hell wasn't real, and forgiveness was easy.

> There was a trip we took to Gate City one time, in which I went to Greensboro Historical Museum. It was in that Museum, that I learned not all heroes are really heros'. Some of the men who fought in the Civil War didn't fight with their beliefs but with their hearts, and the heritage they loved so much. I remember thinking how much it must hurt to hate your brother, and now realize how easy it happens. This was the second and the last trip I would on with Robert's family. I once thought that he was a brother, hell even thought I would die for him. That was until I saw that when I needed him the most, he only kneeled. I couldn't help but read the letter. It was written by a friend, and maybe in the end that was all that should matter.

> He said all the words he had always said and left a ticket to the museum behind. Like Pandora, the box I had opened so long ago, released all the worst parts of what I could remember. Regret is the only thing in life that is always true, it always reveals what we had no faith to do, no courage to try. I had no courage to confront a friend for believing differently, and now his voice is an echo of some memories and nothing more. One of the last conversations we ever had happened just three days after I had finally left the war. Robert didn't know I was coming, but I had nowhere else to go. I knocked on his door just before the sun could rise, but he was awake with his wife. She smiled politely from behind her coffee but didn't say much.