The Next Morning…

Another day, another adventure. Dustin woke up to find a breezy and calm morning in Brisbane, Australia. The weather was a perfect mild sunshine, and the birds were chirping all throughout the neighborhood. Filling the ambience of glee and excitement. The perfect setting…for another nightmare of adventure. Dustin, barely getting out of bed, rose up to having a bad hair day and a migraine. His head carried a tremendous burden of pain, as if he had a whole wrestling belt on top of him for heavyweight champion. Dustin looked around his room, and saw he was still here in Australia. He got up from the bed, somewhat losing balance, and gave up a deep sigh. He then started stretching his limbs, up and down throughout the body. He twisted his arms, legs, and torso. But once he got to his head…*craaaaaaccckkkk*

"FUCK ME!" Dustin growls out loud, feeling his soul leave his body and his muscles turn numb from the pain. Dustin almost collapses back to bed from the sudden amount of pain that slapped him like Will Smith to Chris Rock. As Dustin sits back down, he rubs the neck pain with his hands. Gently doing so, Dustin then smiles and lets out a quick chuckle.

He then whispers, "You old dog, guess my bastard ass hasn't had peace in a looooong time." Just as he sighs deeply, the pain slowly leaves and his body begins to have movement once again. His body began running once more like a car with a new coat of pain and fixes. He stood up again, and quietly walked to the bathroom. Once there, he looks in the mirror and stares very thoughtfully at his reflection. Gazing at his appearance, he looks seriously and stays frozen for a good minute. Reflecting on all the things he has gone through. The many adventures of his many battles of life. Or rather say…lives. But even so, he watches and thinks, Hmhm, even through Hell and back…I managed to keep my spirits up. He sighs once more and proceeds with his new morning routine.

After some time, Dustin steps outside and now is on his porch. He starts admiring the view and watching as nature takes its course with its routine. He nods his head and smiles passionately as he watches this happen. But as he takes his time admiring the view, a neighbor came out of his home, dressed with gym clothes and strange white cords with some tiny piece of something connected into his ears. Dustin watches as the canine leaves his home and begins warming up. Dustin slightly tilts his head in confusion, most likely betting that this dog is going for a run. Once the dog finishes his workout, the canine comes off his porch and begins jogging right across Dustin's house.

Dustin decides to give a friendly gesture and say, "Good Morning!"

The jogger responds in a strong Aussie accent, "Morn'!"

But as the jogger keeps on running, Dustin stands in confusion. Eyebrows raised very low and clearly the definition of misunderstood. He then looks at the sky quite angry and cries out quietly, "What the fecking hell is a "Mawn"?!"

This episode of Dustin is called "Slang".

Dustin is still standing in disdain, still wondering what the hell "Mawn" is supposed to be. But as he stands straight up thinking what he got responded with, another neighbor is seen in sight across from his place. A yellow/golden labrador, tidying clothes on this sunny morning, as well as humming a song. Dustin, feeling curious, decides to want to give a friendly gesture by saying hello. As Dustin nears the house of the labrador, he continues wondering about the strange encounter with the jogging dog. He couldn't deduce what the word "Mawn" meant or if it was something shorter of another word. It kept spinning around his mind, but could never come to a conclusion. Eventually, he made it to the home of the labrador and decided to talk from the front side of the fence. As leaned against the fence, he shouted at the neighbor, "Good Morning!"

The labrador stops humming and looks around him, wondering where the voice came from. But as he looked behind him, he noticed Dustin leaning against the fence and staring straight at him. Most likely the suspect, the smiling canine returned the salutation and waved at him.

"Morning!" The labrador shouted, and proceeded to say, "Let me just finish up here!"

Once the labrador finished, the canine started heading towards Dustin, returning the kind salutation with a greeting. The two shake hands and the labrador says, "How you doing?"

Dustin answers with, "Umm…good, pretty good."

"That's swell. You must be the new neighbor, right? I'm Pat by the way." The labrador questions, pointing a finger at him politely.

Dustin nervously smiles and responds, "Hehe, yes. That is pretty much me. I'm the new…neighbor, I guess, Pat."

Pat then widens his eyes and smiles greatly, exclaiming, "Wackadoo! That's awesome!"

Dustin then gets serious, scrunching his face in confusion and lifting his hands to a halt. He tilts his head, with his ears tilting sideways, and asks, "Wait-wait-wait…what…was…that?"

Pat tilts his head inquisitively, answering with another question, "What was what?"

"That. Wack-a-doo. What kind of word…is that?" Dustin remarks, making sudden hand gestures and sounding completely lost.

Pat stays quiet for a moment, and then realizes. He chuckles lightly and shakes his left hand side-to-side, trying to mark something out. Pat then speaks out to Dustin, "Oh right, you're from somewhere else."

Dustin is surprised to find that Pat guessed right about him. But before he could say something, Pat continued telling him, "If I remember correctly, Bandit told me you were from the Beautiful Queen's Land itself, Great Britain. So in reality, you wouldn't know any Australian words, right?"

Dustin slightly nods his head, and responds, "That's true. I've actually never heard of a certain "Australia" being my whole time over there. You could say I was…lost, at the time."

Pat smiles agreeingly, and adds on, "That's right. People never get to see much when they're always shut-in and closed from all of society, right?"

"True," Dustin answers calmly and quickly. Pat then gets a brilliant idea, something he can do with Dustin right there on the spot. He snaps his fingers, and proposes to him, "Tell you what. I'm pretty much free right now to help out with a few words, if you got the time?"

Dustin widens his eyes. No one has ever wanted to teach him something new, especially if it was something to do with language. Although in reality, there wasn't time for him to be taught new things back then. All there could be…was mud and blood. But now, he has to let go. Learn and accept the new wonders. Do everything to change and become a better person.

Dustin smiles, and looks back at Pat, telling him, "Sure, I got the time for that."

Pat leans in closer and says excitingly, "Wackadoo! Glad you accepted. Hope you enjoy the session, pom."

"The hell? What's a pom?" Dustin questions, raising an eyebrow in confusion. Pat laughs, and answers, "This will be one big session."

Pat continues saying, "Alright, your first two words. Pom and Wackadoo. They're pretty simple actually. The meaning of Pom is pretty much to describe a British person like you, and Wackadoo is just an expression. It'd be something to say when you're pumped up and very excited. You get it?"

Dustin, memorizing the whole thing, nods understandingly and says, "Alright, Pom is what I am and Wackadoo is an "expression to say when excited", what else is there?"

Pat thinks very hard, saying, "Well, let me see." As he thinks, Dustin gets distracted as he turns his head around to see a view of the city of Brisbane. Closely watching it, all noise becomes muffled. His head began thinking intrusive thoughts. Death, agony, pain. His eyes started swelling up with tears, as he started hearing from a distance the roaring thunder of artillery. His imagination ran wild. Seeing a perfect, incredible city get blown from artillery and shells of naval combat. True beauty created, then turned rubble and dirty debris. This made Dustin begin feeling insecure. His hand started once again a horrible tremor, to which he tried to hold tight. But just as he was in silence…

"Dustin!" Pat shouts softly at Dustin, causing Dustin to quickly turn around, utterly jumpy. Pat then asks, "Y'okay man, you seem a bit bad."

Dustin nods hesitantly and responds in disdain, "I'm fine…I'm fine…I'm…good." But even so, Pat noticed Dustin's hand having a tremor, which caused Pat to smile. Pat then spoke, "Hm, you've been through war."

Dustin looks rather shocked at this sudden guess, causing him to be stunned for a minute. He couldn't speak his words, and stuttered for a little. Dustin then finally said, "How…how do you know?"

Pat smiles, shaking his head and swaying his hand saying, "Nah, don't worry about it. My grandfather was in World War 2, and when he came back," Pat deeply sighs, "he was never the same. He had…hallucinations, trauma, shock, and the tremors in his hand. Every Time I see him in that state…it just pains me, you know?"

Dustin looked at his hand, and nodded slowly. He looked back at Pat and added to his assumption, "Yes, it's true. Once in war…no turning back. You get shellshock and trauma that will…haunt you for the rest of your life. Something that will never be cured. A curse."

Pat nods and listens attentively, hearing every word Dustin said. After Dustin finished talking, Pat then asked, "If you don't mind…which war did you fight in?"

This froze Dustin. The uncertainty of what to reply with. Being only spawned at certain times in history, what could he say? He didn't know much of history…at all! At least, not of modern times. Yet even so did this bewilder Dustin, leaving him speechless and not knowing what to say. So, to sum it up…

"Let's just say…it was a…rough war," Dustin answered nervously and somewhat hesitantly. Pat then nodded in accordance, understanding the response of Dustin.

He says, "It's alright. I understand if you don't remember what it was. From so much trauma, one really can't comprehend all that happened around them."

Dustin laughed internally, knowing damn well what he has gone through. He thought, Sure, through Hell and back and I still don't understand what happened to me. All the bloodshed. All the deaths. All…my…fri…friends. I am a monster. Dustin almost began swelling up in tears from this thought. The feeling of loneliness and solitude that would haunt him. The emotion of guilt that would kill him over and over again until he was nothing but a bag of suicidal thoughts.

Pat, trying to enlighten the mood, decides to apologize, "Look, Dustin right?, I…didn't mean to bring a cloud over your parade. I hope you can forgive me for that. It's just…nice to talk to someone about…my grandfather. We cool?"

Dustin chuckles softly, and nods slightly. He looks at Pat and answers, "Hehe, don't worry about me. I've put it behind me and learned to accept what fate brought to me."

Pat smiles and points, "Now that's a beauty!" Dustin laughs and responds with, "Let me guess…another fancy Australian word, right?"

"Absolutely. The wordplay is also called 'slang' to let you know," Pat answers honestly.

Dustin smiles and answers gratefully, "Thanks. For teaching me this. And what else is there that you know?"

Pat scratches his chin and thinks, "Well, let me see…"

And after that, I spent a good session with my good neighbor Pat about learning new words and their meanings. Many mistakes and horrible accent changes, but yet, I ended up learning something, at least. Learning this new special English that they call "slang". Hmm…funny word if you ask me. But even so, I had fun with this knowledge. The new combinations of words. Their new meanings. It's all a bit…barmy, you could say, but in a good way. I hope to learn more throughout my time in this new world. To adapt to my peculiar surroundings and attach myself to their new customs. From now on, I will try. I will do my best.

I will succeed.