Hero of the Nation

Here is a dark, ironic story that I would like to share with the faithful who still frequent this e-space even after my so long a hiatus. Rest assured all, the copyrights have been taken care of this time. And so, no copying this time, you lurkers. Enjoy.

HERO OF THE NATION


***


The old man shuffled into the warmth of the store, making his way to the counter with a slight limp. He was tall, but so thin so as to appear wasted from some disease. His face was drawn, the skin tight over sleek features that must have once framed a handsome enough face. Now though, the face was cast in shadow by the look of long suffering it perpetually wore.

Leaving a slight trail of snow falling off his clothes, the old man made his way to the desk in the center of the store, thinking no thoughts of making excuses for being late. The owner of the store, did not believe that a more than usually reticient employee would not be racking his brains to make up a story for his tardiness. He pre-empted any explanations or alibis by snarling...

"And just where do you think you have been? God, if all my workers were so incompetent, we would not have made out as a simple tool-shop, let alone grown into one of the most well-stocked hardware houses in the state! No, dont make any excuses, I'm not going to forgive you this time. You've been late three times this month, and that is simply not acceptable anymore at a premium business like this. We at Dad's Shed have held a tradition of loyalty to our customers for the last twenty years. I have been running a tight ship here, marred only by your performance at times. And before that, my father ran it the same way. I won't have any more of this. Go on, get out!"

The old man did not get angry, did not get sad. He simply stood there and looked at the young owner of the store he had been working at ever since it began. When he made no move to depart, the young owner, infuriated, launched into another full-winded session:

"I said get out, and I mean get out! Go on, what are you waiting for? Do you think you will get any sympathy for your limp? I don't care if you were wounded in the war. I simply cannot tolerate you here anymore. If you had the basic decency of a man, and the courage of a soldier with an honorable wound, you would come here on time, no matter how much your leg hurt. Ha! War wound indeed. Sometimes I think that is all a story you made up to gain puty to excuse your disgusting lack of punctuality. Why, if my father were still running things here, God rest his soul, you would have been fired years ago. Now go on, scoot!"

Still unmoved, the old man turned and walked out. He walked slowly, as always, and with a noticable limp. He didn't say much, and had not had anything much to say to the store owner anyway. He walked on along the street, his coat wrapped tightly about him.

It was cold outside. The snow had been falling for almost the whole night, and the wind had a bitter sting to it. All about the walking old man, the street was covered in the white billowy fluff, exuding a chill that cut through to the bone. His old worn clothes didn't help much.

Walking, the old man reached the room he called home. It was in a dingy building, the stairs littered with refuse dumped there by the occupants. The elevator stood with its doors open on the ground floor, it's floor slightly below the level of the ground. The metal cage stank of urine and other human malodors.

Limping along, the man began to climb the stairs to reach his room on the third floor. He met no one on the first floor, but on the second, he met a little girl sitting outside a door. The girl was about five years old, and was leaning against the wall next to the room just next to the stairs leading up the to third floor. She wore a faded pink dress, that would not have been pretty even when it was new, which would have been atleast six to seven years ago.

Her face was lined too, but with tears against dirt, not with age. The old man stopped his ascent. Crouching down close to the little girl, favouring his limp side, he could hear voices from inside the door. The voices were loud, and were raised in anger. It seemed the man and the woman of the house were fighting, and the child had either fled or been left outside.

The look of woe left the old man's face, and it cracked in a wry little smile.

Careful not to reach too close to the little girl, he asked her, "So, little angel, they left you out agin?"

Staring at the old man with a hint of suspicion, she just nodded slightly. She had seen the old man before, and he had always smiled when he saw her, but this was the first time he had spoken to her.

"You're afraid 'f me, aren't you?"

The little girl, now almost on the verge of tears, shook her head stiffly.

"N', y'aren't? Well, that's a brave little girl. Don't worry, I'm not going to hurtchya. An' before you think that all strange men say things like that, I'll jus' leave. So don't worry."

Speaking, he rose. The smile never fading from his face, he turned and walked up the stairs. Pausing halfway at the landing between the floors, he looked down at the little girl.

"Don't worry little angel, things'll be alright. Life ain't that bad, y'know. You'll see when y'grow up."

Waving once to the little girl, he moved up the final few steps to his floor. After opening the reluctant door, he moved inside. Having been careful to avoid soiling his worn, wet shoes on the rubbish on the stairs, he paused in the doorway to wipe the soles thoroughly on the mat there. Satisfied that they would dirty the room no more, he removed them and placed them by the door.

The room was just that, one room. The toilet and bath were in one corner, partly shaded by a tattered curtain. There was a small window on the wall facing the door, with the pane covered with cardboard salvaged from cartons.

Along the wall with the door, as far away as possible from the window, was a lumpy mattress on the floor, covered with old and patched blankets. There was one chair, with a small table that looked to be almost as ancient as the man. Those only two items of furniture were next to the window.

Brushing the snow off from his coat, he hung it on a rod on which the rest of his few clothes hung. A clothesline arced across the room, from window to doorframe.

The old man pulled on an old jacket. It was fat, a used air-filled garmet that he had picked up at a sale of hand-me-downs. It was ugly, its original color having been acid green, but now having faded under layers of grime and use to something like the underside of a rock in a garden.

He picked up the pipe that lay on the table, and filling it, proceeded to light up. Puffing to get the pipe going, he looked up at the two photographs in the room. They were hung next to each other, almost touching. The pictures, while being of the same size, portrayed scenes completely different.

The photograph on the left showed a young man and a young woman, hugging each other. While the fuzzy photograph wasn't very clear, the young man could be recognized as the old man staring at him, in earlier times.

And happier times too, it seemed. The couple were smiling, the love between them evident, needing no words to explain their relationship. There was no look of worry or grief on the young man's face. The woman seemed to glow at the propect of living happily ever after with her love.

The old man sighed, used to staring up at the frame and wondering of what was and what would have been, if not for the fire that night that swallowed up his hopes for the future. The fire had claimed the woman staring down from the photograph, and the smile that now lurked on the young man's face in the photograph had transformed into the look of long-ingrained gried and acceptance on the old man's.

The second photograph was clearer, and in sepia instead of black and white. In the second photo, there was a group of young men, one of whom could be recognized as the young man in the adjacent photograph. The young men were all smiling too, but there was a look of determination and confidence in those smiles.

The group was in uniform. the scene clearly one before the start of an important mission. Soldiers could be seen hurrying in the background, loading equipment and stores into their backpacks.

What was more, one of the men in the photo, his arm around the young man who looked at them both after so many years, seemed familiar. If one looked closely, he looked a little like the store owner the old man had left a little while ago.

The old man's pipe was going full blast now, and he put on his shoes while puffing on it contentedly. As big a shock as getting fired from the Dad's Shed was, he needed to move on. It was time to ask a friend for help, however much he disliked asking favours. Locking the door, he moved down the stairs.

The little girl was still crouching next to her door, but the tears had dried off by now. Seeing the old man, she gave a little uncertain smile. The old man, waking from his walking reverie, saw her, and smiled back.

"Hey now, little angel", he said, taking the pipe in one hand, "Feeling better now?"

The little girl nodded self-consciously.

"Well isn't that jus' the greatest thing? Here, this is for you. Don't be off and cry again now, y'hear?"

He handed the girl a crumpled little currency note, almost all of his meagre savings. The girl's eyes widened. She had never seen that much money before.

Kneeling down beside the girl, not heeding the dirt on his trousers, he whispered to her with an expression of conspiracy.

"Now y'keep it all t' yourself, y'hear? Don't be giving any 'f it to yer ma or pa. I want you to keep it, till you want if for som'thing real special. An' when you get that real special som'thing, think about me, and what I said about the world not being so bad all the time, ok?"

Smiling broadly now, the little girl nodded cheerfully. The old man stood up, puffing on his pipe once more to keep it from going out. He moved away, towards the stairs leading down.

The little girl waved to him, still mute. He waved back while limping down.

"Goodby little angel. Take care 'f yourself."

The old man walked slowly out of the building. He made his way to a cleaner part of the city, walking almost alone in the still falling snow. Cars passed sometimes, but they were few. Not many other pedestrians could be seen.

The cold was getting stronger. The old man began to feel it even in his warmer jacket. Hesitating about if he should go on, he looked up to the sky. It was a solid wall of dark clouds. They seemed to mock him, daring him to go on.

Wrapping his arms closely about him, he shrugged, moved on. The cold was getting frigid now, and the old man began to wonder if he had not been stupid to challenge the fury of the storm. But nothing had scared him from going on in his life yet, so he would not stop now.

Struggling, his limp leg starting to drag, the old man realized that he could go on no longer. He had to find shelter, and wait out the storm. Moving on, he started looking for a place to get out of the wind and snow. The side roads were no help. This part of the city was inhabited by the rich part of society, and they liked their roads open and wide.

Searching desperately after a few minutes, the old man stumbled. He fell forward, and tried to break his fall with his arms. But those arms were no longer populated by the strong sinews that had once carried a wounded man out of a combat zone in the last big war.

Cursing as he fell flat on his face into the snow, the old man waited for a moment, trying to gather enough strenth to let his aching arms push him clear of the ground. But they couldn't. When he tried, he felt a spike of hot pain go through his right arm, and his left was partially numb from the cold and the fall.

Wondering about the numbness in his left arm, he turned over, back to the ground, and slowly got up to a sitting position. Looking at his left arm, he found the jacket was torn in a long slash from under his left armpit to the middle of his chest.

Now frantic, he looked about for a place to stay warm. He knew that he might die if he didn't get out of the snow right now. Looking around, he gradually became aware that he had reached the house that he had been making for all along.

Smiling a bitter smile, he tried to crawl towards the gatepost to press the bell-button. But the instant he moved, another hot spike stabbed through his right arm. Feeling very tired, he decided to rest a while before trying for the gatepost. He searched for his pipe, and discovered that he had lost it. The falling snow had hidden his last treasure.

The old man shrugged, drawing a deep breath. He would just rest a while, and press the bell-button. It was just next to him. How hard could it be? He was safe now. He would just rest for a moment, get his strength back and press the...


***

Clip from the 8 AM news:
"... And now we move on to our next story. Last night an old man was found dead outside the house belonging to Colonel. J. S. There was a tear in the man's jacket and one arm was fractured, hinting that he fell and then succumbed to the cold.

As our viewers will be aware, Col S, though now retired, is one of the country's most celebrated war veterans. When contacted about the discovery, Col S responded that the deceased was one of his best friends, and another war veteran. Infact, Col. S said that the deceased, now being identified as Captain N A, saved the lives of five soldiers in the last big war, for which he was decorated with the country's highest medal for courage in combat.

'Cap. N A was one of the best men I have ever had the honor of knowing. He saved my life, carrying me and four other wounded men out of the combat zone at the risk of his life and limb. He could have left us there, no one would have said anything. But he risked his life, and went in after us. And that is what defines a man, not degrees and money like the young people of today think...'

Cap N A was shot in the leg twice while rescuing Col. S and the others. He crawled back the last time, with the Late Cap. P W on his back. Cap P W passed away ten years ago. He was the founder of the state's largest chain of hardware stores Dad's Shed.

When contacted, Cap P W's son, who currently runs the business, said:

'He was a hero. My dad always talked about him. Me and my sister grew up listening to Dad's stories about Cap. N A and how he saved Dad's life. If I had only known that he was injured. I wish I could have done something to help him. If I'd known that he would be out in such bad weather on foot, I would sure have driven him there.

Col. J S often visited us. But Cap. N A never did. I never met him. I will go to his funeral tomorrow, and finally come face to face with the man who saved my father's life. My sister is on her way back to the city, with her husband and children. The whole family will attend.

We at Dad's Shed have alway had a special place in our hearts for war veterans, and give out special prices for them. Why, even the man working at our biggest store here in the city was wounded in the war. There is no service that any member of the family would not have performed for Cap. N A. We will be there to show how grief-stricken we are, and meet the others whose lives he touched...'

The funeral for Cap. N A will be held tomorrow at 10 AM. The mayor and the city's councillors will be there, on behalf of the city's grief over losing such a cherished and loved soldier of the nation.

Moving on, our next story is..."