I pull away, turn on my heel and make for home. Escaping the glaring eye of the other, I realize, is only temporary. As I walk the last quarter mile toward home, there is my tormentor, staring me squarely in the face from on high. Twenty minutes earlier the dark entity was perched loftily upon a promontory, ensconced in that deadened wood. As I hasten anxiously homeward, I look only at my feet in order to avoid the persistent draw of the sinister landscape ahead on the ridge.
Upon my porch, I reach with a jerk for my key chain. I fumble as I look about to my right, to my left. Finally ... the latch key poised between thumb and index ... I insert it ... turn the key and knob.... Ultimate relief, at last, as I enter the cool, dark of my abode. As I collapse upon my threadbare wingback, I try to blot out images that began surfacing in my pounding cranium when I was in its leering presence.
It all happened so many, many years ago. It was war. It was a world away. The boss said they weren't people. No, not really. They were a threat to our way of life in this, our great country. I was just a kid. What did I know? Sure, they were only peasants, but they were mothers, fathers, brothers ... Why don't their faces just go away! Mom taught me all men are brothers. Always reading and preaching Pearl Buck. My mother would sit up in her grave and shriek if she'd known what I had signed up for. Maybe it was good she died so young. Rest in peace, Mom, rest in peace.
I would hate for her to have to choose between the two of me ...