Silence

by Becky O'Calahan

Extended version of 'Silence' drabble. You can do everything perfectly and come home with everything attached, but sometimes nothing will make it right.

Long version ofthe drabble at mash100th on lj. It killed me to cut it, soI compromised.

Silence is Silver

So you come home and expect things like hugs and kisses and 'oh, I love you, I missed you, never leave me again.'

And you get it - well, most people do, and I pity the ones who come home to 'oh, I couldn't wait any longer. Meet Hank, the handyman from down the street.' Like we need the extra heartbreak.

It's all sunshine and rainbows and estranged aunts who come down and kiss your cheeks, even though you are most definitely no longer a child. Everyone is all happy, always near you, always congratulating you as if you'd done something real good by getting out alive, until you're so sick of it and would rather just be lying down in your real bed in your real room instead of with all these happy people who don't know what they're talking about.

Then, after the excitement wears off, everything slips down to where you wish for old Aunt Mildred to come back and offer you some more mints and say what a proud lady she is. Everyone looks away when you talk to them, or run off after unidentifiable people when you look like you might approach them. They all ignore you because, after the novelty of the soldier-man has disappeared, you're just an outcast who was away for two years doing terrible things to other people in the name of Freedom, Justice and the American way. They just can't understand.

So they leave you in silence, and you have to wonder which is worse - ignored here, or shot at there, living on a day-to-day basis, surrounded by people who might have to die for you?

I prefer the silence.

But that's just me.