The Page of Wands

A BUCKAROO STORY

Do you remember when the war ended? We were happy. I guess my gladness was developed out of others' elation. I was not particularly jumping in one foot. I mean, I am not a piece of shit, I told you I don't care about your story of life but I encourage people to aid others. We don't really need eat each other's background to feel supportive.

I was a volunteer once for a community project that received soldiers in a stationary shelter to feed them and rest them before they were sent back home to finally gloat their job was done.

I was younger than I am. I was shier too. My nihilist behavior hadn't come through my clothes and I was probably as naive as you.

I met Damian in this state. At that time I asked for others' stories or never stopped someone when they began ranting a tale I did not require for my lunch. I was in charge of serving their lunch though.

Damian was this overwhelmingly gaudy guy whose optimism overflowed his own recipient and stained whoever around. I think today I could not be able to shut him up either. And I guess I especially was caught up by him because despite his misery and the post-war melted dog faces, he popped out of all those gray melancholic soldiers because of this spirit.

I wondered why. Why he threw himself to the joy and gave me white smiles when he was being expulsed from this monster called War.

He stayed in the shelter for a week before going back to his house. He was engaged to a girl his age, and his parents were the typical goodies. At least I remember. He chose to talk to me a few words every lunch time but as the other soldiers made a line after him, he couldn't go on and his frustration was visible without groveling his fastidious smile.

Once every gray man was served, I left the place and came back the day after. I did that for a couple of weeks before turning myself into a catcher of disgraceful thoughts.

One afternoon, Damian approached me and said hi. He asked my name and gave me his. I was busy to leave the place.

"I am Josh," I said. I don't remember the way I said it, if it was as bittersweet and long-faced as my young being was.

"I always talking to you in lunch because I feel you're nice."

I wasn't too much talkative either. I'm telling you, that Josh and this storyteller were two different human beings.

"We're the same age, I think."

I told him my age. I was picking my things up. He smiled with his hands inside his pockets. They always wore their military pants.

"Thank you," he ended up saying.

I was amazed. "Why?"

"For serving us food."

"It's my job."

I guess I was not happy for the end of the war due to my youth. I was too inadverted of the world's crying.

"You're too stiff. Sorry I bother you."

I understood I was too rock-faced. I apologized.

"You are leaving next Tuesday, you said, am I right?"

"You remembered. Yeah, boy. My mom must be waiting for me."

"I did not reply to you because I did not know what to say to you. I am accustomed to see your kind with long bored faces. They don't speak, don't socialize."

"I see. But ... can we be friends?"

"A friend who's about to leave me. I don't know, it is not a tempting idea."

The shelter's refectory was almost empty and it was plunged in darkness. The two lightbulbs were not enough to illuminate all the beasts joined to bite and sip. Some old women who worked as I and one and another soldier walked from one table to another.

Damian took a glimpse of all of this and said, "Don't you mind coming with me to my room? I guess we're more comfty there."

I tagged along him. He got upstairs to the only story the building had. It was a small room. By that time I remembered there were less than 20 soldiers hosted in.

He locked the door once we were in. I had my backpack on, I was not too much clear of what was happening. Soldiers were incomprehensible creatures, I probably considered. Damian asked me to sit onto his arranged bed. A very short one.

"I wanna give my new friend a memory he won't forget." He began taking his clothes off. I did not protest. I just observed his tanned scratched abdomen and his garden of hairs all over his body, the only flower it generated hanged down out of its bud.

I observed. I had an erection.
Damian came close. He put a hairy leg to one side of me and coming next, he had his ass onto my pants. Then he placed his hands on my shoulders and his white smile was next to my shitty expression.

"I don't know what I'm doing, man. But I know I want to do it."
And he kissed me. His hands traveled my back. I discovered a lot of new things that made the new world a flashy place for a second. A second that, drunk in reality as a piece of bread soaked in coffee, falls in shreds.