“Was there much pain?” the girl asked climbing on her grandmother’s knees. “Tell me, please, because I want to know. My grandpa wasn’t always like this, I`m sure of that. Sometimes, looking in his eyes I can see joy, peace, even though one second later it turns into grief and melancholia. It isn’t fair, he shouldn’t be like this!”“I know, darling, I totally agree with you”, said grandma as she received her niece in her arms. “Alec wasn’t always like this, and it’s been years since that tragedy happened, but he isn’t a fast healer. I actually can say that he isn’t a healer at all. He can never forget what happens, not even time can help him. This isn’t the first time I tell this story, and I still wish that I could go back in time and figure out why was he so destroyed.. it was war after all; It was long ago, the year when the war was at its beginnings. Desperation was on everyone’s faces, and each woman was being overwhelmed by fear for her husband’s life. I wasn’t going to let your grandpa get in the fight, I was too afraid for his life… on other words, I was a chicken. Lack of courage, fear for his life, and so I locked the doors to our house and I threatened him that if he would dare to leave, that would surely be the last time he’d ever set foot in that house. He didn’t seem scared and at the beginning he paid attention to what I said. Just to be sure, I took all the keys in bed with me and stuck them under the pillow. Your grandpa was cunning, he let me fall asleep and then he opened one of the windows in the bathroom, the only ones that had no keys in the entire house, and he went to fight with his friends, his childhood gang. I didn’t hear a thing. He just sneaked out without the slightest sound. I slept through the entire night. You should’ve seen my face in the morning when I woke up. I was always waking up with my face on his chest, counting every beat of his heart until he would wake up too. That morning was… unbearably scary, that’s how it was. All the keys were under my pillow, I checked twice, and after that I remembered the windows in the bathroom and went there: of course they were opened. My entire sanity collapsed. I got out on the street still on my pajamas, calling out his name as loud as I could. A neighbor heard my screams and came to me as quickly as he could, taking me inside the house and telling me that yelling wasn’t going to do much. I fainted. A half hour later when I came to my senses, my neighbor was still next to me. The huge door in the front opened and your grandpa came inside the house, limping, his left foot covered in blood right from the knee to the ankle, carrying Max’s body in his back. I will never forget Alec’s face, because he never was more scared than in that day. I forgot about everything, about how I was going to yell at him as soon as he got in the house. I was just happy that he returned alive to me. I wasn’t sure that Max was dead or alive, but by Alec’s face, his best friend ever was no longer between the living ones.”
“Who’s Max, grandma? You never told me about him… was he a friend of my grandpa or was he just a fellow who got stuck in the war just as grandpa Alec?”, asked the girl, trying to remember a friend of her grandpa, who’s name had been Max, but failed to do so.
“They had always been friends, and they were together ever since their mothers gave them birth at the same hospital, in the same day. Just looking at Alec’s face, his blue eyes covered with tears, just like the sea getting sick of her waves and throwing them away to the shore, I didn’t know what to say. I just asked…
Was there much pain?”
[This was made for a writing prompt]
