If there was a for sale sign posted, Jack Wend’s neighbors might have commented that the neighbors they didn’t know were moving out. When his real estate agent insisted that the agency sign would draw in more potential buyers, he said, “It really is not my style to let people in on my private affairs.”

None of the neighbors knew that he had recently lost his wife of thirty years.  What did it matter? They didn’t know her when she was alive. Alice died in the hospital after a short battle with cancer.  The Wend’s did intentionally plan their standoffishness when they moved in, but not with malice of heart, although it did come across that way. It was the pitiful stares, awkward questions and excessive fawning that grew to be too tiresome for them, prompting them to move from their last neighborhood. 

There were some invitations offered to the Wend’s in the first year; a block party, Christmas caroling, a community garage sale, all written and placed in the mailbox since there was no access to the front door. The entire property was fenced and gated, with Leland Cypress shielding the home from view on all sides.  After a while the neighbors gave up on written invitations, going so far as deleting them from their neighborhood watch list.

The neighbors would come to know the Wend’s only by their minivan, the handicapped license plate a vague clue.  “Huh.  There goes the Wend’s, again.  Wonder why they have a bug up their ass. What’s their deal?” The questions eventually stopped and the Wend’s received the isolation they craved. Not even a wave was exchanged as they drove to and from the neighborhood. The Wend’s conspired to not turn their heads towards waving neighbors, so after a while the neighbors gave up on that too.

Jack and Alice were different before Vietnam.  They married right before Jack’s first tour of duty when Alice was unnoticeably pregnant.   “It’s the right thing to do Jack declared,” even though they were only together two months at the time.  They had a simple ceremony with their families and closest friends present and then honeymooned for three days in the Poconos.  When Jack flew out to Vietnam, he left his family, his job as an insurance adjuster, his college buddies and Alice behind.  He was just 22 years old.

The soldiers kept their sanity by receiving mail from home, but when Jack found out in a letter that Alice had lost the baby he just about lost his mind.  He was fighting in a war he didn’t believe in, married to a girl he hardly knew that just lost his child and there was nothing he could do to change any of it.  Well, he could have dodged the draft, and he could get divorced, but that was not something a good Catholic boy like him was about to do.

When he was desperately seeking sleep while lying awake in the jungle, the “what ifs” plagued him.  When they came they came sequentially, starting with that fateful night of December 1st, 1969 when he and a bunch of his friends got together in his parent’s basement, and crowded around the black and white Zenith TV. 

“What if I had been born on a different day?”

They could hear each other’s hearts pound as they watched “Live from Washington, It’s Lottery Night 1969”.  The CBS network had the nerve to advertise it as if it was some stupid new game show.  By network standards, even back then, the staging was low budget, set with random mix matched office furniture pushed together. Tossed into a water cooler sized jar that sat upon an ordinary step stool, were 366 small blue capsules the size of an ob tampon mini.  Tucked inside the capsules was not absorbent cotton, but the fate of young American men.  NY Congressman Pirnie had the distinct honor of selecting the first capsule.  If you were a man between the age of 18 and 25 and your birthday was September 14th you were presumably one of the most unlucky lottery winners of all time.  When Congressman Pirnie pinned the printed slip of paper in the 001 space provided on the large makeshift board with the heading Random Selection Sequence, 1970, they all exhaled.  No one within the damp basement walls was born on September 14th.  The director of Selective Service moved towards the jar and reached in next. Jack remembered feeling the impending doom before the date was read aloud.  April 24th.  002.  While the man on TV turned his back to face the board, all of Jack’s friends turned toward him with petrified eyes.  For all time, he would be linked with the group of the second unluckiest lottery winners.  The previous April 24th, he had turned 21. “It’s been 21 good years,” he thought to himself.  “Nice knowing you all,” said his macabre eyes. In the room they were six friends in total.  Two of the six were among the first group called in his home town of Westchester, Pennsylvania.

Occasionally in the jungle he’d be comforted by a dream of home, playing stick ball as a young boy, riding his sting ray bike fast and furiously, or eating hamburgers, french fries and his mother’s apple pie while listening to the beach boys. And then he’d wake up to the nightmare of his reality, the heat, the misquotes, the bombs, the bullets, the confusion and paralyzing fear. More often than not, if he wasn’t lying awake with “what ifs” plaguing his mind, he was sleeping fitfully dreaming of his own demise. “What if I die on the battlefield?”  But then he somehow always collected himself.   A man of faith has somewhere to turn at those moments.  Why he remained faithful to God through it all was a mystery, even to him, especially as he spent a year fighting for his life, his injuries multiple. The bullet that penetrated his spinal cord may have left him alive, but it also left him paralyzed from the waist down.

Jack called a moving company to come help him pack up his things.  With Alice now gone, he was moving to an assisted living development on the west coast to be near his only living relative, his baby sister.  The person they sent was nice enough, a young man about the age he was when he went to fight in that senseless war. 

“Young man, I almost forgot.” He said when the young man told him he was finishing up.  “I believe my wife stored some boxes up in the attic.  I can’t be sure, since as you can see, I’ve never been up there.” 

The young man didn’t demonstrate pity as he looked down at Jack’s wheel chair.  “How do I get up there?”

“There is a pull down stair case in the hallway over there,” Jack pointed.

He could hear the young man pull down the stairs.  He barely knew the sound it made reminding him it was probably years since Alice had pulled down those stairs.  The young man came down with only two boxes and placed them on the table before Jack. “That’s it.” Said the young man.

One box Jack recognized.  He knew it contained some of his childhood pictures, memorabilia, his purple heart, and his love letters from Alice during his time in Vietnam.   The other box was nondescript other than the word PRIVATE written in the upper right hand corner of the box.  Jack stared at the box wondering if it would be wrong to open since he knew it was something Alice had told him nothing about. 

“Will that be all sir?”

“Huh? Yeah sure.” Jack was so perplexed he forgot the young man was still standing beside him. “Thanks for everything, young man.” 

“OK. Bye then. My company will send you a bill.”

“Sure thing.” 

And the young man knew to see himself out.  As the door latch clicked, Jack swallowed the lump in his throat and decided it was necessary to open the box.  “What if it contained a will or some other important document Alice neglected to tell me about?” He recognized his own handwriting and was touched that Alice had saved his letters from Vietnam all these years, but he was confounded to find there was another bundle of mail that had unfamiliar handwriting.  The return address was from their hometown and he recognized the name as someone he went to high school with.  Fred Pastore.  He sat there reading into the night, his stomach not notifying him of hunger but of a host of emotions, from anger to sorrow and even empathy as he read the correspondence disclosing a love story that Alice had taken to the grave.  It was the love story of Alice and Fred.

In the future, the startling disclosures would be added to his repertoire of “what ifs” plaguing his tired mind in reading Fred’s words.....“I have forgiven myself for running away to Canada to avoid registering for the draft, but I have never forgiven myself for leaving you when I knew you were pregnant with my child....Thank you for taking my advice by swiftly finding a suitable father to marry.  I had always heard Jack Wend was a good guy. I can understand how you feel it would be wrong to divorce a disabled veteran, but does that mean you have to be celibate too?  Please say you will run away with me, or at least take a vacation and come visit me. You are married, not dead.  I don’t know Alice, so they say; all is fair in love and war. Is it Alice? Is any of this fair?”

Jack thought of the irony of all of it, and couldn’t help be wonder if he should contact Fred Pastore and let him know of Alice’s passing. His Alice. The one that drove him to every VA appointment, bathed him, changed his colostomy bag, and honored her vows in spite of the shaky parchment they were written on. No, Fred Pastore. All IS fair in love and war, because from where I am sitting, love and war are equally as tragic, but I will not cower. You will not hear from me.

He put all of the letters back in the box marked PRIVATE and would remember to have one of the movers throw it in the trash for him.  He suddenly felt very hungry and decided to order a pizza with the works, something that he hadn’t eaten since before he married Alice.  “You are what you eat,” she always said. He suddenly realized what a good job she had done keeping him alive all these years and couldn’t help but wonder WHY?

When she would whisper within her sleep

A thousand poems protruded from her dreams

A mountain of flowers delicate in breeze

To rivers led bleeding into shark infested seas

I cannot remember her warmth anymore

Delivered to shivers as our love was torn

My tongue blistered,

Wood slivers splintered in my teeth

If a million stars collided

The first was her through me.

F irst he's sweet, he slipped up again

U nder the sweetness he pressures you to forgive

C an't you see he's upset listen to him whine

K nowing it's the truth things will be better this time

I ndulging him and forgiving him

N ever letting it happen again

G etting out if it happens again

B roken nose

I nternal bleeding

T olerating one more beating

C atching flack for looking hurt

H earing the words Sorry, can we make this work?

C rying packing fleeing fled

U sing his savings to get ahead

N ever again letting her blood be shed

T urning and leaving like she said

If only I could fuck like you,

Your hair all fucked, your body too,

The bed messed up, the sheets so wet,

All cause he drove, a black Corvette,

Attracted to the green he had,

You’re fucked up mind so fucking sad,

So you jumped in as quick as fuck,

Now you’re naked, and shit out of luck,

Your make-ups running, the tears don’t help,

While he’s fucked off, you’re by yourself,

Another guy, how many’s that?

A hundred? Two? All seen your flat,

They came and went, you fucked them all,

Your phones worn out, waiting for the call,

It’s fucked how fucked you fucking are,

Look like some trash, once were a star,

But you won’t stop, you can’t, too late,

Try telling your two legs to wait,

So I’m afraid I’ll never learn,

The way you fuck, each guy in turn,

It’s just a shame you had no price,

All that money, wouldn’t it been nice?

But instead, free fucks for all,

And now you’re naked, waiting for the call.

By Ilija Sekulovski

The covenant

Is broken.

The throne

Is empty.

The Dawn

is coming.

The gates

of destruction

Are opening

And devastating

The world.

Who can relight

The fires?

Who can stop

The Prince?

Find the priest.

Retrieve the amulet.

Take a deep breath,

Step into the portal,

And slowly fall

Into Oblivon.

Let me love you

Beneath what we see

The depths of your mind

corners of your soul

Where darkness hides

Let me love you

And be there when

You need me most

Never far from you

Let me love you

Every part I

don't understand

The things that

don't mange sense

Let me love you

To carry your burdens

Heavy on your shoulders

When times are rough

Let me love you

And make a promise

That you long to hear

Treat you with care

Let me love you

Everyday we are apart

Long to be back

Into your arms

Let me love you

And take your breath away

Like you do mine

Take in your fragrant sweetness

Let me love you

Everyday of my life

Make you my princess

And live happily ever after

#romance