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By Kain Vinosec In a small corner of the world, on top of a hill owned by a man named Small, there was a retirement home that catered to the needs of the elderly that resided there. The home was a stately sort of affair with brand new velvet drapes and walls whiter than Michael Jackson. Small had passed on a number of years ago, cursing himself for having to live in the home for a number of his final years. The care of the place had gone to his son after his passing. His son did everything he could to fill it up with crazy people that wouldn't know if they were getting mistreated or not. There was one man, however, that was as sane as Stephen Hawking and almost equally disabled. His name was Jace, and he was 87 years old. Jace didn't have a lot of people to talk to in the home, but he managed to scrape by with an occasional friend or chess partner that had retained enough of their mental capacity to keep him company. One friend in particular was a lovely old lady by the name of Alisha. She was coherent, a good listener, loved to talk, and had the most beautiful smile that Jace had seen in a good forty years. The problem was that Alisha believed she was a World War I survivor. She had hundreds of war stories to tell and tell she did! Jace loved listening to her stories but he was dismayed because after a few months of their interaction she started to go deeper into her illusions of WWI. Before long she would be completely gone. Jace had lived a long life and was definitely nearing the end, but he wasn't about to let his only friend go without a fight. He started bringing up various points in their conversation that would contradict what Alisha was trying to say. Things along the line of; “I was in Japan in ot-five” to which he'd reply “You weren't alive in 1905” and she would of course rebuttal with “I meant 2005 sonny”. Of course there was no war of any kind in Japan of 2005, but Jace could never get through to her. That wouldn't keep him from trying though. One day in particular the two friends were sitting in Alisha's room alone on the second floor of the home. The walls in the room were a splash white that had faded a bit during the times. Alisha had the room decorated with family photos and a number of fake swords and guns that her family had given her to further her delusions. They hung on the walls and acted as a warning to the staff and any other elders in the home that she was a bit off the deep end. Jace never payed much attention to them. Alisha was sitting on the edge of her bed staring at one of the old family photos. It showed her and her two older brothers standing outside an old mansion. She was probably around fifteen years old when the picture was taken, her brothers looked at least eighteen for the one on the left of the picture and twenty-four for the one on the right. Alisha had been a beautiful young lady back then. Now she just stared at the picture and wished she could remember her family. She still had her beautiful smile at least. Today she was wearing a long robe over a pink, silk nightgown. She hadn't really gotten out of bed yet, despite that it was already around three o'clock. Jace, wearing a casual dark gray button-up shirt and slacks walked up to her door preparing to knock. He always liked to dress moderately well. His reasoning was: “If I'm gonna go anytime, I wanna go in as much style as Small's Hill will allow”. What was left of his hair was brushed back and a shining silver. The sunlight bouncing off of the pale white walls especially illuminated it today. He raised his hand to knock on her door, but say that it was open a crack. Through the opening he could see her sitting on the bed looking troubled. He knocked lightly and pushed his way into the room casually. “Hi Al. Kind of late in the day to still be wearing your night clothes isn't it?” He walked across the room and pulled a dark wooden chair out from underneath a desk of the same design. A horribly uncomfortable thing, he positioned it right across from the lovely lady and sat down with the hopes of brightening her mood. She heard him enter and fought back the same tears she always fought back when she tried to remember the truth about her past. After he'd sat down she looked up at him and smiled. “Hello Jace. Sorry about my appearance, I just slept all through the day.” She sat up a bit straighter and laid her hands on her lap. It was kind of a habit when she talked to other people privately. It could have been a clue to her upbringing but neither of them really paid much attention to it. “Don't worry about it. We all need to get a good recharge sometimes. Besides, you didn't miss anything. It has been a really quiet day aside from the storm that's coming over the horizon.” Jace leaned forward a bit and held his hands together with his elbows resting on his legs just above his knees. He flashed her a glance with a hint of a smile. He had never been very good at showing his emotions. “I suppose, but I hate missing time with you.” She looked over out the window and diverted Jace to do the same temporarily. She could see the blackened clouds making their way towards the home and she recalled something she felt like sharing. “Did I ever tell you the story about the plane crash?” Jace took his attention away from the window and looked over at her. He shook his head from side to side gently and grew curious, but saddened a bit as well. “No Alisha, I don't think you ever did.” Alisha stood up slowly from her bed and walked over to her dresser. On top of it was a young picture of her with a handsome man at a church. She had always assumed it was her wedding photo but she couldn't remember that either. She turned away from it and looked back at Jace. “It was back in twenty-twelve. I was hired as an advisor by the government to help train some of the new recruits for gun fights. Those kids hated me sometimes, but I pushed them so hard for their own good. I mean, if you don't have the skills to stay alive then you don't belong in a war right?” He stayed seated and fiddled with his fingers, trying to avoid a breakdown. He was listening intently to her story but hated when she went off about things of the sort for fear that she was slipping farther away from reality. “It makes sense to me I suppose.” She moved away from the dresser and sat down in a large recliner that she had from her last residence. She could barely remember living there now, and she had lived there for a full twenty years. She looked in his direction but was really looking past him to the photograph of her with her brothers. “I was the only one training on that day. I think it was a Saturday. We were doing trial runs behind enemy lines as basic training when a ball of fire fell from the sky. A large cargo plane had crashed about a mile or so from where we were. It was somewhere within the borders of Turkey and the enemy was coming to investigate. We had to act fast.” Jace leaned back and looked over at the door which he'd forgotten to close on his way in. He stood up and rectified his mistake while she finished her previous statement. “I don't think we ever had a fight with Turkey.” He closed the door and walked back over to his seat. He leaned back a bit this time and let his hands rest on his knees. The chair was uncomfortable but he felt as if it were some type of fair trade. She told her stories and he suffered the hard wooden seat. “Jace, the war was everywhere. It consumed everyone. I don't think Turkey would have been left out with all their scientists working on the Vapo-Matic bomb.” Jace held back a bit of laughter and looked over at the vaporizer by the window that said “Vapo-Matic” on it. He looked back at her and smiled. “You're right, I'm sorry for interrupting. Please continue.” She smiled and nodded in approval of his cover. “Thank you. Anyway, we were attacked by the enemy. They destroyed my entire unit. I was the only one left. I had to watch them all die. I killed a few of the enemy but I ended up having to hide to save my own life. It failed and I was captured. They took me back to their camp and pressed me for information.” Jace sighed a bit, but played if off as a deep breath to keep her from noticing it. He constantly wished he could say or do something to pull her back into reality but nothing ever came to mind. He began to wonder if there was any hope in trying anymore. “Were you tortured?” He asked, and leaned forward again to fake interest. “I was. It was horrible. They stripped me first and took away all of my personal and military items. Then they tied me to a wall and beat me with a large wooden club they had covered in coal dust. Every time they hit my naked body it would leave a large mark so that everyone would know how many times they'd hit me. They took turns for hours. My body was bleeding all over and my face was still covered in the blood of my fallen students.” Jace kept staring past her story, though still paying enough attention to fake it. “How did you make it out?” She stopped looking at the picture and looked at him. Her eyes seemed different now. Colder in some way. He couldn't quite figure out why though. “They let me go after three days of hell. I was raped, impregnated, beaten and imprisoned. I told those bastards nothing.” He was a bit confused now as he'd never really heard her use any fowl language before. She was slipping right in front of him and he could do nothing about it anymore. He gave up and decided to continue with the ruse until he could slip away. “That's a horrible story. Did they ever get what was coming to them?”He leaned back again and took a long, slow breath. He crossed his arms across his chest and looked at her kind of impatiently. “Some of the sons of bitches were bombed by the government. Some of them were hunted by some of my fellow soldiers. Three of them were killed by me.” Jace was kind of worried now. She never talked so brazenly before and it was beginning to scare him a bit. “Were there any left?” She leaned forward in her chair and laughed a little. He hadn't heard her laugh like that ever. Sometimes she would laugh at his stories and their silly nature, or she'd laugh at her own stories but in a joking manner. This was more of a sarcastic kind of laugh that demeaned what he'd asked. “One of them did. He's still alive today.” Jace grew curious. “Why wasn't he ever killed?” She got angry and stood up. She looked down at Jace who looked a bit distressed and cautious of her actions. “Because he managed to get away. He wouldn't be able to escape me forever!” Jace stood up and walked toward her slowly with a helpful, concerned tone in his voice. “You can't go around killing people anymore Al. What's done is done.” She pulled a .44 Magnum from somewhere within her robe and aimed it straight into Jace's eyes. “I don't have to go anywhere. You know what you did. This is all your fault! Finally you motherless mother fucker you are going to pay for what you did to me!” Jace backed away and shook his head. He now stood between a dresser against the wall and his only friend holding a gun aimed right at him. “It wasn't me Alisha. You're losing it girl. Calm down and put the gun away okay?” Alisha wouldn't listen. She shook the gun towards him and began screaming. “You wish you dickless asshole. Today is the retribution of the wrong you suffered upon me. A lifetime of anguish and torment boil down to this one heated moment in which you will be burned alive for the hell you've cursed me with! My bastard son wishes you a lovely after-life in hell.” She took a step towards him and pulled the trigger. She shot him in the face. |