Okay guys, this is just a little something I came up with at school.. I know it's not the best thing ever, but what more can you expect from something written at school? Anyhow, R&R please!
Silence. That's all that's ever around him now. Everyone in the USMC thought that he was some sort of wide-eyed, blood-crazed psycho that was always in the midst of a fight or some shit like that. But, really, silence was the only friend he has ever had. It was always there and never left him, even when his parents deemed him a hopeless case. It was always his one comfort in this big, bad world, but the war changed all of that. Before any of that shit, the silence used to be his one comfort, his one escape from everything. But now, after the war, the silence wasn't anywhere near as peaceful as it once had been. Silence only ever brought death with it during the war, and there were never happy silences. Noise was always there, constant yelling and screaming and laughter and sounds that simply let people know that you were alive. But silence was the only noise that ever passed through a dead man's lips. Now, instead of silence being a relaxing treat, it was a noise all in itself.
You can never escape the war, not truly. He would constantly have nightmares about the things he had seen back on those islands. Nightmares about everything. About the Japs he killed and all the good men that were left waiting for the day they would finally be able to see home again. Sometimes the dead would speak to him through these nightmares. They would ask, "Snafu, when do I get to see home again? When do I get to kiss my beautiful wife and hug my lovely children? When do I finally get to show my Ma that I was right, and that the Japs were not match for her fearless son?". They would constantly ask, "Snafu, why did I have to die? Why couldn't you have just died in my place? I have a family, a life, and all you have is your silence."
It was a question that Snafu asked of himself daily. Why did he survive? How did he survive when all of the other men that would actually be missed didn't? Snafu would never get the answer to his lingering question. He locked himself away in his house, only ever letting himself out when he had to go to work or get food to survive. When he wasn't out, he would just sit in his room and bask in the dangerous silence. Snafu knew he was going crazy, but he wasn't willing to talk to anyone about anything. He never once brought up the war in front of his workmates, he hardly ever even spoke to them anyway. He'd rather suffer in silence than to live happily in a world that he knew he didn't belong to. And he knew he didn't belong to this world. This world was meant for happy people, talkative people, people in love, people. Snafu didn't belong in any of these categories. Snafu wasn't a person anymore. He was a mute nothing. He was Snafu. Situation Normal, All Fucked Up. Yeah, that was Snafu alright. He wasn't good enough for love, the one thing that he longed for. He wasn't good enough for love, and he wasn't good enough for Eugene.
Eugene was the only exception to everything. He never thought that Snafu was crazy or insane or not human. Eugene was there for everything, and never once left his side. He always made Snafu feel like was was wanted and that he wasn't, in fact, a hopeless case. He loved Eugene, and maybe that was why it was so hard to simply get off the train. Snafu knew that he could never give Eugene the goodbye he deserved, and he could never put into words how much he meant to him. He wanted to stay on the train with him forever and just travel onto some far away country where no one knew who they were and no one would ever bother them. But he also knew that he could never give Eugene the life he deserved so much. The love that he deserved even more. Because love was all that it came down to, wasn't it? You could live a life of poverty and wake up every morning with a smile on your face if you simply had love.
Eugene never left any contact details with Eugene before he left, and Eugene never bothered to give Snafu his, either. So when the doorbell rang and Snafu opened the door to see Eugene standing on his front porch, suitcases on the ground in front of him and body soaked with rain from the thunderstorm outside, Snafu thought he was dreaming. Eugene didn't say anything, he just looked at Snafu with those lost eyes. Those lost and saddened eyes that Snafu only ever saw one glimpse of when Eugene told him that his dog died. Snafu ushered him inside, not really giving a damn why he's here, and made him a hot coffee. Snafu handed him the steaming hot cup and noticed, with a sly smile, that Eugene took a flask from his pocket and topped the cup up with alcohol. Eugene told Snafu that he couldn't handle it back home. He couldn't handle the constant nagging to get a job like he had just been sitting at home his whole life and hadn't fucking killed people for the sake of his country. He couldn't handle the long nights of silence and being alone. He couldn't handle the lack of sound at night, with no mortars or snoring or Snafu's body pressed up against his as he tried to get those few precious moments of peaceful sleep. He couldn't understand why he had it back when all of the others didn't. He couldn't understand why they had children and families to go back to, but God saw fit to send Eugene back instead when all he had was his silence. He couldn't understand why God let back someone so useless. He felt the only person that he was good at being was someone that listened to the silence.
And Snafu smiled ironically down at his best friend, at the man he was secretly in love with, and couldn't help but press a small kiss to his lips. He whispered, "You are not useless, Eugene. You are here for more than to listen to the silence. You are here for me. We can listen to the silence together." And Eugene smiled back at him and pulled Snafu closer into another kiss. A longer, prolonged kiss that was filled with burning passion and longing and happiness.
And maybe the silence wasn't so bad after all.