“So, what are you thankful for?”
The two men are sitting as far
apart as the small bus stop bench in the middle of nowhere allows. The bleak question
comes out in a cloud of cynical cigarette smoke which made the older man wince,
but he answers anyway.
“Thanksgiving, isn’t it?” He asks
in quiet, reflective voice. He is silent a minute. “I can’t actually really
think of anything,” he says, a moment later. “I give my life to the Corps. Three
tours. In return, I get a busted leg before I’m thirty; my wife leaves me—takes
the kids. Gov tried to say I had PTSD, so they could take away my guns, but my
wife beat ‘em to it. Took the house and everything.” He chuckles dryly. “So, I dunno. Nothing really comes to
mind.”
The younger man with the cigarette—not
yet twenty, stirs from his malaise enough to ask one more question as the bus
rolls up. “Regret it?”
“The Corps? Naaw. It was worth it to keep punks like you
safe,” he says affectionately. “It’s just, that sorta life doesn’t really give
me any reason to be grateful, ya know?”
The young man tosses away his
cigarette. “Thank you for your service,” he says softly as the man boards the
bus and it pulls away.
He stares after the bus, growing smaller in the distance. “Funny,”
he says to himself. "I didn't think I had anything to be thankful for either. Guess I was wrong."
He pauses. "Thank you for your service," he whispers again, to himself this time. The bus has vanished, leaving only clouds of dust.
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