She added a dot as she finished her sentence. This was it. Her final moments. She just signed one the most important document of her life and felt as though all the weight carried over the years had been lifted off her shoulders. She took in a withering breath as she read through the sentence in her head.
"I, Rebecca Lobelia Larkspur, of sound soul and mind, give all my possessions and wealth to the local orphanage on Daisy street, Onslow, Australia, in the case of my passing.
Signed date: 21 July 2000."
It was Rebecca's birthday today. It felt right that today was the day she was brought into this world, as quiet as a mouse, and that today should be the day she said farewell, without so much as peep now either. She squinted around the room, age had taken her sharp sight many years ago but she could still see the colour in the world. The colour of the setting sun as it lit up my large but cozy room, the colour that was in the horribly garish walls and curtains, eye screaming yellow. She didn't know what she was thinking when she built this house. Then again, it was the 70's. She supposed she was trying to fit in with the younger generation. Still, yellow. It could have been worse, I could have chosen pink.
Rebecca scolded herself, "now don't go saying that, pink has lovely hues... it just needs to be swamped in lovely shades of blue to off set the putridness."
What's that wheezing sound? She puzzled. Oh it was her... Her old lungs were struggling, or it could have been her throat... The sound reminded her a bit of the poor blokes after the war. She often wondered how some of them were. She hadn't seen any of the old gang lately. It could just be only her left to remember... She didn't like remembering. Too many children got into war, "damn officials were blind", She swore to herself, half of those boys were younger than fifteen, and it was obvious.
She remembered how they'd talk about the glory of war, but it all ends when they see the battle frontier. Flashes of light blind you, the sounds of bombs, bullets and the dying deafen you. You just wish you could go home. Home. Where the sunsets take your breath away, and so does the heat. Those summer days in town when you feel like melting, along with your shoes, on the road. Home, where the dirt is red, the people are red and the animals are red, and often it is not just because of the dirt. But none of us could go home. We were there, and there we stayed, hoping, just hoping for a cease fire to pay our respects. To count those we lost and those we still have, to write letter home to assure loved ones that we were alright. That we were still lucky.
She still remembered coming back home in 1945 as an independent woman. But her life, it didn't really stop there, She set her adventurous mind to the globe, traveling from country to country, learning all she could from the local population. Judo, so then she had some form of defence other than a gun. Meditation, to help with her haunting memories. The healing properties of herbs from a hermit in Colombia. How to train and gain the trust of animals in the South American rainforests. politics and strategies in France and myths. Legends and stories collected from everywhere so then she had something to tell the children at the orphanage. They loved to here her stories that made them feel as though they were worlds away.
She smiled as she thought about the antics caused to cheer up the younger soldiers that had lost hope, dressing up as characters, letting the boys borrow the makeup she never wore, talking in accents while cursing out hitler and his merry gang of cannibalistic monkeys, playing poker using ANZAC biscuits, chocolate and smokes as currency and betting on how badly a pigheaded group of men were going to lose against me.