Away on his train

"Don't cry little one, I'll be back someday," he told me as he wiped the tears from my cheek, catching a drop on his finger. The tear shone in the bright light of day, a crystal on his fingertip. He had a sack slung over his shoulder, a vivid look on his face that even at my young age, I had seen many men leave with, but when they came home, if they came home they didn't have that look on their face anymore. No, instead, a haunting look would cloud their features, new lines would appear on their otherwise young faces, and dreams would disturb them. My father had these dreams; I would hear him scream in his sleep, waking to nothing but darkness while my mother would try to soothe him.

However, I knew, just as well as she did, me but a child, that his dream taunted him with their wicked voices, for I could hear him murmuring them when he would take a nap. I look up at my brother, his light hair gleaming a golden blonde in the sun. He smiled to me, trying to reassure me I'm sure, to reassure the child. Soon that mischievous smile would be nothing more than a grim one. Yet still I cried, I didn't want him to go, to leave me like others did. It was unfair this war, the war that had my brother in an army suit, all washed and pressed. The one that had my father crying out in his sleep, the one that had my mother weeping just behind me as she waved her son off to another country. Wars were complicated, I didn't know much but what I did know is that war affects everyone. Even me, the child, the 10-year-old girl. Yes, I may be ten, but my mind and soul are much older.

So while I watched my brother hug my mother, telling her, no promising now that he would be back I cried some more. As I watched him pat my father's back, grinning like the young man he was, I cried harder still. When he came to me and laid a hand on my hand, I closed my eyes. Pain racked my heart, fear for my older sibling made me tremble. Nevertheless, I knew, just as all the other mothers, and fathers, brothers and sisters, that there was nothing to stop them from going. Whether it was their pride or duty they would go and fight for a war that I knew nothing about other than it hurt everyone around me. I watched as my brother boarded that train, the last of my tears falling to the ground. I wiped them away angrily not wanting to be weak but like my brother who seemed to have no worries. He waved to us as the train started to move, smiling his darling little smile. I turned my back looking away from my brother, not knowing…

I am no long a child now and I never did see my brother again on that sunny day by the train station. But I remember so clearly, for that day will be forever printed in my mind. As he rode away on that train that day, as he left us to go to that war the war I now understand fully, something in me broke. It will never be replaced nor can it be repaired. I will never forget but I will not dwell. At least I have this: an image of my older brother, my friend smiling to me with pride, his soldier's suit neat his hair shinning his eyes bright. I have that at least I have that.

Yup, Ladies and gentleman, im so on a roll. Review please. They make me happy. Seriously.