My Hero's Short Story: Druid Traditions

In the morning, I woke and for a moment, I didn’t have any thoughts about the war. That lasted until I went to the toilet. As I replaced the spent roll of toilet paper, I noticed that the motion of reloading the toilet paper rod was almost the same as reloading a clip in my weapon.
I had read somewhere that life consists of what you think about. I thought about war every day and all day. It seemed only numbers and listening to my aunt as she taught me about the Druid traditions broke my concentration on war. Even at night, the only planets I could identify were Venus and Mars.
The plants identified with love and war. Since, I was a failure at love, Mars was my planet. I learned to identify the constellation of Orion. Orion was blinded in

his sleep. He was cured by looking into the sun. Some say he was a hero for helping Greek armies.
My Aunt Claudia said he was like a Druid priest, the link between the gods and man.

I was trying to get a hold of my thoughts when the doorbell rang. Throwing on my bathrobe, I went downstairs and answered the door. It was Aunt Colleen. “Is it twelve already,” I asked, thinking that I must have lost time as I fought myself through the maze of my war memories?
“No,” Colleen replied, “I had nothing to do this morning. I was at the donut shop and thought I would spend the day with you if that is alright.”
“Come on in. I just woke and haven’t made coffee yet,” I replied.
“Take a shower. I’ll brew some coffee, and see you when you’re ready.” Colleen said.
I went upstairs. I looked in the mirror as I prepared to shave. I thought my face is unrecognizable. I was just another faceless grunt. I survived, but I could have been one of the many who died and recorded on the daily news under light losses suffered in Viet Nam today. Jed was among the 200 who died in a battle in the Delta outside of an unnamed village north of Saigon.
I hoped my aunt was not like those obscene hawks who said that you have to expect death. War was messy. You could be hit by a bus or die in battle. I knew war was not like that. I did not find God in battle, I found that life was precious and should not be wasted on ideological battle between

politicians.
I put on some music, hoping the guitar would deafen the noise of war in my head. As I showered, I sang in a horse wiper. I became breathless and felt hunted by the memory of girls running in terror in the villages we fought our way through.
I remember a little girl falling on her knees. She changes the meaning of Alvin Lee’s lyrics as he sings about his failure to change the world. Her back was brown under her torn blouse. Her legs were twisted. Her soul rose in the steam. It was grey like the wallpaper.
All around me were the shadows of my comrades. They couched. Awkwardly, they called. There was no pride filling their voices. There was only the cry of those wanting to survive.
I remembered how calm we were when we killed. Could soldiers be men in peace time? I asked myself. I thought what is human in the enemy is human in me. I called it hope, and stepped out of the shower to sit exhausted on the toilet and drip water on the floor.
I knew it took me a long time to come downstairs. My aunt didn’t mention it. I poured myself a cup of coffee and joined her at the kitchen table. She opened the box of donuts and offered me one. We ate and drank in silence, before she began talking.
“I will miss Claudia” she said.
“I will too,” I responded.
“She could do things,”
“What do you mean,” I asked?
“She awakened people,” my aunt said.
“I don’t understand.”
“When you awaken someone, you give them a true sense of their situation,” my aunt Colleen replied.
I thought about my life with my aunt Claudia. She had made me aware of how my suffering hindered my ability to live. She had given my home remedies to help me minimize the effects of my experiences. “She was a special person,” I told my aunt.
“Did you ever say the rosary with your Claudia,” My aunt asked?
“No.”