Last Call

His eyes were closed, his memories calling, beckoning him to take one more stroll, to meet up with someone he couldn't name, to claim his old spot, his favourite table, to have a final whiff of the mead-drenched air, the familiar bartender pulling back the tap to his usual, muck like draft, grinned. He could taste the long ago days, when work was just a way to pass time, to be dutiful, to avoid thinking, remembering all that made him the man he'd become. Just like that he was gone, his mother weeping, his father aware that he could not do anything, nothing to save his own boy. He could smell the day when he was broken by war, hunger, death and perpetual fear. It was of earthworms, of poisonous bile, men spitting, laughing, bragging of the faces they saw in their final state of anguish; the same men who grabbed handfuls of dirt, moistened from melting snow then crammed it into their prisoners mouths. There, now they'd been fed, they'd sneer. Cigarettes, ashes on ashes, foggy mornings with nothing to hear, to touch, to run to. His eyes twitched, heavy and tired, he wanted more than this last bit of life he clung to; he wanted to feel his mother's arms around him, feel her lift him up, out of his suffering, his father to make that well thought out move in the chess game that never was finished. He strolled deeper, back to his first love, her green eyes prodding him to make her his girl; he had kissed her and it was like the first sign of spring, the day the war ended, the sweet bread his mother baked, the strong hug his father gave him when he finally walked through the threshold after his unwanted adventures. She called him from a place with flutes, harps, melodies softly sung; where was this place? He couldn't take his misplaced memories fading in and out; he wanted to escape, just hide in the hay until his life was over, just as he did in the barn, or was it an old train car? He had hidden with another soldier, both too young to have made many choices, there minds had simply been living, soothing, free before the kick at the door. Questions were asked, had he put up a fight? He sat down at his favourite table and sipped his beer, he thought of his wives, his children, chocolate and the bareness of his soul. How could it all lead to somewhere so cold? He'd wanted to make his son's laugh, his daughter feel special, yet how could he when the villains which had such a hold on him sat before him now blocking him from his favourite table, staring at him with cynical smiles, smelling of decay with their skin so thick and meaty. Dare they haunt him as he neared his last hours? He never was what others saw, assumed, projected, felt; he was a constant hostage of his past. It is last call, despite his table full, he stands proudly for his final draft.