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Such a grand room, a room too benevolent to be gifted to someone such as he, a failure in arms battle. The room was empty aside from a desk and some shelves, cleaned out for the newly appointed Colonel to fill as he liked. For the Colonel to make it his personal space. Walking through the room the Nepali found a resonance within the shallow room. There was a bitterness in the Colonel, some may even called it grief, upon receiving the title he did. He had known it for a while, being offered the position after impressing the generals with his great work in the barracks- Great work being surviving longer than most. Yet the young brunette never felt himself deservant of the position, merely being an inexperienced youth clinging to a rifle as if life ought to depend on it. Which back then, it certainly did. Now he was running, and he was running to the safety of a coward’s field. A coward who left his best friend behind.
Pacing behind the desk, calloused hands ran over the cold surface of a wooden desk. The faint touch reminded Naib of another. Memories of dirtied hands inches apart, shoulders mushed up while the men covered from shots and fires ahead. Such a faint touch seathing them both, making the blood pumping breaths feel more bearable in an otherwise horrible time. Just when the soon-to-be Colonel would look towards his friend, his heart would skip a beat. Admiring the beautiful man covered in dirt- even muddied Norton stayed true to his beauty. The man with a nest for hair was a bastard, for sure, but from one bastard to another Norton was everything. And Naib was but a fool.
A loud creak made Naib jump from the office chair. The wheels creaked louder than a rooster in the morning, startling Naib when he planned to look over files from the fields. It was a poor man’s run, the Colonel endlessly digging through any report for a greedy cause. Just where had Norton gone to, and was the man he called friend still alive? Naib still remembered the day he went to say his last farewell to the soldier, only to find Norton had already bid his adieu. Good was it if he got out of the army, but with injuries as heavy as the older soldier, Naib had to admit a worry for the other’s well-being.
“Good is it you were not the one attacked. If I were as short as you I doubt I woulda’ made the blast.”
“Oh shush you.” Naib still remembered that heavy laugh that rang through the taller man with robustness. The laugh soon having the man coughing his lungs out as he refused to lay still, his injuries taking a serious toll on both body and mind. It was impossible to treat Norton without the man hissing, groaning and trashing around. It pained Naib to see Norton like that. Norton would always sit and tell Naib various tales and stories, all to distract the younger soldier from the misery ahead of the barracks, and the way Norton spoke always made Naib believe there truly was something there. This man before him could do so much with the talents he possessed, even if it were mere talents in acting and telling Naib knew talents such as Norton’s were a waste in barren lands. And Naib was right. What once had been the most wonderful symphonies from golden lips was now songs of agony from a man riddled with scars.
Knitting his brows, Naib flipped through another batch of useless files. There were no updates on any man named Norton Campbell, and the note the older man had left in his place remained the only proof of his Campbell to still be around. A mere farewell.
“I wish not for your last memories of me to be like this. Please forget the past days. I will miss you dearly, - xoxo your dearest.”
Naib had not been able to look at such a note ever since the day he found it lying on the bedpost where Norton was meant to lay, bandaged up like a mummy pulled from the dirt. The note he had tucked within his wallet, next to a cherished picture of his mother. The Nepali felt too sentimental about the first and last letter he received from his dearest to toss it away, even if the words stung to read every time he tried. Back when Norton confessed his heart, if Naib had accepted those feelings he himself returned would Norton still have left with no word once catastrophe struck? Naib felt foolish. Falling right within the trap of fear for loss becoming the cause of loss.
Cupping a hand over his cigar, the Colonel eased a heavy heart with an equally heavy drag. He ought to one day become a detective, he thought, seeing how much papers he pulled just for a man. Albeit, he was giving up on his search to court the one he let go, as he held no clue at hand.
Yet the idea of investigations clung to his mind. With another drag from the cigar he chewed on the thought. Finding it not too bad a plan to retreat to calmer, yet nonetheless exciting, work once the wars ought to be over. And who knew, if he was lucky he may even run into the man he wished to once more meet. If possible he would redo everything from start- this time not letting fear get in the way of his heart as he would court his friend the way only Norton deserved. Naib would promise to love him whole, hopefully never losing the one he loved again.
All these thoughts humoured the Colonel- As if anyone would grant a man such as him the luxury to start over again. To intertwine those fingers in a safe grip. The Nepali chuckled in a saddened defeat, entrailed by how creative he had recently gotten. Norton clearly left a horrible influence after all those fairytales in the barracks.
What Naib would do to hear the gentle symphony from the other man once more, just once.