Come closer

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.

Pericles

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Come closer.

I'd waited a long time to hear those words; they wouldn't have been appropriate before now, the distance rendering them redundant - indeed I would not have wanted to hear them - but now they sounded like music.

She looked beautiful, like the brushstrokes of every masterpiece ever painted placed in the same space and time, every colour and hue combined with the shadow and light, arranged in perfect form. She was beautiful, from the light dusting of freckles upon her nose to her eyes, a mixture of forest greens in summer and the deep blue sky.

They looked right at me, appraising, needy, and a little demanding. Her lips were slightly parted, pretty pink lips I'd kissed before. She held my gaze a little longer then absently bit the corner of her lower lip lightly for a moment then arranged them into the most stunning of smiles.

Come closer.

It had been nine months since I'd left her; I remember not turning back as I walked away.

Leaving hadn't been easy. She'd told me not to look back. Go and don't dare dare look back, she'd said. I didn't. There were times I regretted not taking that final glance, but she'd been right, we'd said our true farewell the night before and decided once I took that first step towards the transport I needed to focus on the future and my job.

It wasn't the first time I'd deployed; three times I'd taken that walk and three times she'd been there on the tarmac waiting for me to return. Each time I wondered if she'd be there when I got back; deployments were harder on those left behind than on the warrior - But each time she was there waiting. Each time she broke ranks and ran into my embrace. This was the forth time and my face had split into a grin even as tears fell openly down my face as she ducked under the flags holding the families back and ran over to me.

I sat opposite her now, the sounds of the burger joint nothing but a jumbled buzz of sound around us. I heard nothing but her words, saw nothing but her...Nine months will do that to a man. I sat there transfixed by her beauty, a small smile touching my lips, as I made a mental note to tell her so.

There were times I felt detached; I knew that was a normal thing and that it may get worse in time. The sandbox was a long way from the real world. It was hot, dry and ugly. It was pain and loss, misery and elation, death, and life. It was...It was not real, but brutally real at the same time.

Sometimes I struggled to see beauty in the world around me, back here in the real world, but I always saw beauty in her. She was everything beautiful to me and seemed the only thing that made sense in a society of people who would never understand me.

Four times I'd come back. Sometimes I don't know how I managed it. Training? Luck? Who knew; probably both though. Four times I had come back to her but I knew this time would be the last - The last time I'd leave and the last time I'd have to come back. No more deployments.

I was telling her tonight which made it the first night of the rest of our lives. I smiled at the thought pushing the dark thoughts to the darkest recesses of my mind...Tonight was about vibrant colours and brush strokes conjointly placed upon a blank canvas.

Come closer.

And I did.

[A fiction because it felt like the right thing to do.]