Shattering of Glass 56
He comes back from his run and finds her still in bed, photos on her lap. She gives him an apologetic smile. It takes him back to the ransacked farmhouse.
They were searching the adjacent farms for useable machinery parts while she came with them to look for supplies for the pantry. She was a long time in that farmhouse. He found her in one of the rooms. The building had been savagely vandalized, holes knocked in walls, belongings strewn everywhere ….. books, clothing, photos …… she was picking up the photos ….. she looked at him and gave him a similar smile.
“I’ll take a shower, then get us some breakfast,” he tells her, doesn’t want to talk about the photos. Memories are best left in the past.
I get up, feel bad for not pulling my weight. Should have made the effort to go for a run. At the least, I should have breakfast ready for him. By the time he’s out of the shower the coffee’s ready, and porridge. I’m grateful he seems not to mind porridge, because that’s about all that’s left in the pantry, cooked with water and tinned condensed milk. At the farmhouse his unit would be sitting down to something more substantial and tasty.
I wish he could go back to his men. I know he misses them though he doesn’t say it. The corporal belongs with his men, not cooped up in a beach shack, looking after me. He’s going to get bored with just me for company. And it’s all my fault that we’re here, under this self-imposed quarantine. He’s going to get bored with me and then he’s going to resent me. These long runs on the beach every morning are his way of dealing with it but after a while they won’t help him much, either. And his nightmares are getting worse. I had a disturbing dream myself, last night …..
“You okay?” He is looking across the table at me, eyes narrowed with concern.
“Yeah,” I nod. I don’t talk to him about my weird dreams, he doesn’t talk about his. We don’t talk about the sickness, either …. about how we’re going to deal with it if I’ve got it ….. if he gets it …..
“You up for a drive?” he asks. He looks down at the bowl of porridge, shakes his head, looks at me with a wry grin. “We need to stock up on supplies.”
Yeah, we do. I’m getting sick of porridge and fresh fish every day.
Comments
Awesome work superb.
How nice that you read this, Julie ….. thank you :)
– Alenka Co
he’ll need to get back soon…it’ll be weighing on him being gone so long, also on his men, they’d be doing the 2ic’s bidding but that would be draining on them…they’d resent his absence, for the command aspect been removed, for the fact he left for a woman when he would not’ve let them do it, and that he left the section, the family, for someone else and without taking them…the longer he’s gone the harder it will be to win their trust again on his return.
this is what’s worrying Claire …… she knows the sacrifice he’s made for her, knows he shouldn’t have and she feels the guilt for that ….. so good to get this feedback from you, Muds …… thank you :)
– Alenka Co