1A Cold War
Bombs were falling.
That's how Adam Oakley knew he wasn't awake. It was when the bombs were falling that he knew he was in that precarious state between awake and dreaming, his eyes still wide open but not registering anything around him. He only saw the bombs.
"Adam."
Suddenly he was awake again, blinking furiously against the bright sunlight that streamed in from the kitchen window. Percy was watching him with that look comprised of both concern and empathy that Adam knew so well.
"You look tired, Percy." Adam commented quietly once he had regained his bearings. Percy responded with a patient smile.
"Looking after you does wear one out. Did you see them again? You were off in a completely different world." At Adam's confirmative nod, Percy sighed. "Are you sure you're ready to go back to work?"
"It's my first day, Perce." Adam grinned reassuringly in an attempt to put him at ease. "You can't miss the first day. Besides, this will be good for me. Another day and I'm sure I would have gone mad, cooped up in here. Your company is hardly beneficial to my health, I'll have you know."
Percy, not amused with Adam's teasing, did not speak but let his worry display itself in his wide, brown eyes. Adam felt the confidence deflate from him like air from a balloon.
Adam adjusted the name plate on his new desk with a small frown, disliking the formality of it. He felt awkward in his seat, and found himself fidgeting nervously, his fingers tapping listlessly on the polished wood. Three years after the surrender and he still found himself unnaccustumed to the tediousness of the working world. It was nothing like-
Bombs are falling and the dirt is buried so deep in his fingernails that he'll be scrubbing it out for years to come and his friends are falling around him but he can't move from his foxhole can't lose cover shrapnel is exploding in the air and piercing his skin and bombs are falling and Percy is yelling for him shoot so he does and bombs are falling
"Mr. Oakley?"
He was back in his office again, staring down his nameplate instead of Japanese soldiers. Standing at the door of his office was a young boy- a sophomore at the oldest- looking just as fidgety as he himself. He twisted the fabric at the bottom of his standard Green Hill uniform shirt nervously.
"This is guidance, right?" The boy asked. Adam didn't answer him, still studying his surroundings as if he couldn't remember why he was there. "I can, uh, come back another time."
Adam shook himself, snapping out of his haziness. "I'm terribly sorry. Yes, I'm Mr. Oakley," not liking the way the title tasted in his mouth, he quickly corrected himself. "Call me Adam. Please, take a seat." The student, looking a bit resigned- as if he'd been hoping Adam would tell him to leave- sunk slowly into the small chair placed in front of his desk. "What is it you'd like to talk about?"
"It wasn't my idea," the student blurted. Adam raised his eyebrows in both confusion and questioning, prompting the boy to continue. "To talk to you, I mean. My mother...it was her idea. Thinks it'll be good for me. But I, uh...I..." the student took a deep breath to calm himself before continuing in a much steadier voice. "I don't think I can."
Adam smiled sympathetically, remembering when those exact words came from his lips. "I understand."
The student bit his lip and looked away. Adam could see his hands shaking ever so slightly. "You ever think about the war, Mr. O?"
"Yes." He replied simply.
"I had a brother," the student told him, his voice thick. "I had a brother." He put his head in his hands, immobile aside from the visible shaking of his shoulders. Adam sat in silence for a moment, trying to remember what the proper course of action was. He used to be good at it- comforting people. He took the nameplate off of his desk and slipped it into one of the many drawers.
"I know," he told him softly. "We all did."
"So how was your day?" Percy questioned him later in the evening. Adam was curled up on their haggard couch, staring unblinkingly at the worn book in his hands but not reading it. Percy nudged a lukewarm cup of coffee into his free hand and Adam glanced down at it despairingly, knowing all too well what Percy's coffee tasted like. "Mine was awful, in case you were wondering, which I know you were. Studying biology isn't nearly as fun as I told myself it would be." After another moment of continued silence on Adam's part, Percy sighed. "What's wrong?"
"I can't escape it, Perce." Adam mumbled miserably into the coffee, still not daring to take a sip. "Everywhere I go, it's there. How am I supposed to help these kids when I can't even help myself?"
"You'll manage," Percy told him, resolute. He settled down next to him. "You're strong, Adam, try as you might not to believe it. Now," he swiped the open book out of Adam's hand and flipped to the first page. "Drink your coffee and quit being so melancholy. It'll do you no good."
Adam smiled into the mug and took a sip, swallowing it down with some difficulty. "I swear to God Perce, the shit we used to brew on Peleliu tastes better than this." Percy threw his head back and laughed in response, and Adam felt himself grinning. For a moment he thought maybe, just maybe, Percy was right.
The other teachers liked to badger him in the staff room during lunch. They asked invasive questions like tell us about the war, Adam and how many Japs did you kill, Adam and when are you going to settle down and who is that man you live with and when are you going to find a nice girl? He never responded, which earned him an unfavourable opinion amongst the staff. This is why he found himself on the roof of the school during the short lunch hour every day, chewing the sandwich he had hastily thrown together five minutes before he'd fled the house. The solitude had been unnerving at first, something he hadn't had since before he'd enlisted with-
Bombs are falling mixing in with the fat raindrops that have been pouring relentlessly for five days and his very skin is tired and covered in sores from the freezing water and he's sinking in the mud and he's lost Percy lost the entire company and he doesn't know where he is and he can feel the near-misses of the shots being fired in his direction vibrating in his eardrums and he can't save them can't save any of them and bombs are falling
"Hey mister, you're probably going to want to leave."
His head snapped up at an alarming rate. "What..." he looked around, recollecting where he was, and began to rub his eyes with the back of his hand. When his vision had adjusted to reality once more, he squinted into the sunlight and established that the speaker was a young female student. "Who are you?"
"Nobody," she shrugged. "You should leave. Lunch ended fifteen minutes ago. You don't want to get caught sleeping on the job."
"I wasn't-" he paused, his brow furrowing in wariness. "What are you doing up here?"
She didn't answer, but he noticed the way her eyes wandered to the edge of the roof for the briefest of moments. It took all of three seconds for the realization to dawn on him. He stood slowly, steadying himself with a hand against the uneven stucco. "Don't," he said evenly.
"Like I said mister, you should probably leave," her stare was both unflinching and unnerving; a look he'd seen in his fellow soldiers eyes during the long and gruelling walks back to camp, carrying their fallen friends on stretchers. To see the same look in a woman's eyes was even more unsettling.
"I'm not a fool, and I'm not leaving." His jaw was set in determination, and he took a cautious step forward. Her resolve wavered slightly and he noticed a brief flash of desperation in her eyes.
"Please," she insisted, her voice managing to maintain its rigidity.
"I'm not leaving."
"You will," she cried, his words striking the right chord. Her face crumpled, her tough demeanour forgotten. "You will, though. Everybody does."
"I won't," his voice was soothing and she tangled her hands in her hair, frustrated tears springing to her eyes. He took another step towards her and placed reassuring hands on her shoulders. "I'm not going anywhere. You can talk to me."
She didn't reply, but hung her head. He could feel the quiet sobs wracking her body. "You'll manage. It will feel impossible, but you'll manage," he shook her gently. "You're stronger than you think."
"Okay," she whispered. "Okay."
"How was today?"
Adam could feel the thoughtful smile playing at the corners of his lips. "Better."
"I've enlisted," the young man sitting across from him declared. "I won't be finishing school."
Adam tensed and glanced up from his papers to observe the kid. He held himself with the composure of a typical young soldier: cocky, naive, tough. And- oh yes, there it was. Fear.
"Wish I could have been fighting on the front lines with you guys out in the Pacific, killing all those Japs. I hear tensions are high in Korea though. I might get a chance to fight yet," he grinned easily, a casual arm thrown around the back of his chair.
"That's funny," Adam remarked suddenly. "I wish I could have been here, at this school, instead of gunning down other human beings."
The cocky grin wavered on the boy's face, and he averted his eyes awkwardly.
"You should learn to value life more, kid," Adam told him stoically, adding emphasis on the last word. "Maybe not the best thing to do during a war, but oh, how you'll wish you had afterwards," he leaned forward, an intimidating expression clouding his face. "It will haunt you. It will terrorize you to a degree unmatched by any pain you could ever have inflicted upon you by your enemy. All those lives you didn't- couldn't save. War is not a game, kid. It isn't a sport," he leaned back in his chair, his voice maintaining its undercurrent of threat. "And nobody gets out alive; not really."
The boy, suddenly fascinated by the texture of the desk, asked quietly: "what happened out there, Mr. Oakley? On Peleliu?"
Adam waited for it- the imminent reliving of battle, the harrowing vision reminding him of everything he'd only ever wanted to forget, seeing it all and not being able to change it- save a life.
Nothing.
He waited for a moment, incredulous and confused and a little hopeful, before he felt his face relax into a contented expression.
"Nothing you can't read in history books, young man," nothing that can't heal over time.
"So Adam, have any of the women in town caught your eye?" But they knew.
"What about a foreign girl? I'll bet you fell in love overseas and now you're pining, unable to move on. How romantic!" Her eyes were anxious, pleading with him to agree.
"You kiddin'? He's got the entire pick of the litter here. I'll bet you haven't been doing pining of any sort, eh Oakley?" He didn't understand why they wouldn't stop when they knew-
"You hidin' a sweetheart from us, Oakley?"
"Yes," Adam bit out, fed up. "His name is Percy."
"How do you feel about France, Perce?"
The newspaper that hung limply from Percy's free hand- the other occupied with his lighter as he attempted to light the cigarette hanging from his mouth- fell to the table. "What did you do?"
"Can't I just be curious about your feelings on France? Isn't that a question people can ask each other?" He remarked cheekily. Try as he might, he couldn't fight the mischievous smile forming on his face; couldn't find it in him to regret his actions. He'd fought too hard and too long for freedom to live a life of suppression.
"The secret's out then?" Percy asked quietly. Adam nodded.
"Secret's out."
"They'll fire you, you know."
"I know."
Percy looked at him searchingly, his intelligent brown eyes regarding him with caution. After a moment that stretched on for hours, Adam saw his face relax in a way that he hadn't seen it done since the boat ride home, when he- with a brilliant white smile that contrasted greatly against the brown dirt that decorated his face- had exclaimed it's over to the ocean and a blue sky void of bombers and smoke and shrapnel. Adam had felt a guarded optimism then, like the world was suddenly full of wonderful possibilities. He felt the same optimism now, and for the first time, he felt like he could heal, maybe.
"I like France," Percy replied slowly.
The letter was lying on his desk the next morning. He packed his things without so much as touching it, knowing that it would be a polite little message along the lines of so sorry, you're fired. Not that it really mattered, anyway.
A soft knock at the door caused him to jump, one of the books stacked in the small cardboard box he held carefully in his arms falling to the ground as a result. The door opened without his consent, and three students slipped in quietly. They stood awkwardly, unsure of themselves, and Adam recognized them instantly.
"Hi," Adam greeted quietly. The girl, with a face now devoid of grief, devoid of frustration, stepped forward and gingerly picked the book up from off the ground with delicate fingers. She placed it back on top of the stack and took a step back, a contented smile- though small- lighting up her face.
"Thank you," she told him. The two boys behind her simply stared, their eyes carrying more weight than words.
And damn if he didn't start to tear up at the magnitude of it all.