Family Story – Protector
I was not more than fourteen then, living in a cocoon of warmth and security, when I first laid my eyes on you. You, sitting by your honoured little space by the fireplace, propped up against the wall like you always were. That was the first time I really looked into you, your battle-hardened features and your hard steel gaze, the scars upon your steeled frame and the cold hard mouth. Yet, somewhere deep within, you tugged at the strings of my heart, giving me a strange fluttering feeling within my stomach, inexperienced, but not completely unpleasant. Yes, I longed to touch you, feel your cold hard body with the tips of my fingertips, savouring every moment of this forbidden act. Maybe that’s what it was then—a passionate infatuation born out of the ecstasy of achieving the forbidden, nothing more.
You never changed through the years I grew up, but I did. The flutter in my stomach only intensified as I grew up, responding to the heartening tugs of adolescence. Often the we would sit together, our gazes locking, in front of the fireplace, never conversing, enclosed within a warm protective aura of companionable silence. During those little moments of peace, the world would still as I tentatively raised a finger to touch the scars on your hardened frame, steeled by resolve against any invasions, emotional or physical.
I longed to be like you, you, who had accompanied my father during the war. It was you, I know, the reason that my father returned from the devastating inhumanity that had shattered the world apart, the reason that he still sat in his favourite armchair, by the fire, enjoying his pipe, the reason my mother still got to kiss him goodnight. Yes, you were my hero, an idol to look up to in those years my heart tried to mature against the pressure of the world, you, a figure of cold yet heartened humanity.
Then, that night—the night which changed everything, my past, my present, my future. That night which questioned the eighteen years of my life, the love of my parents, the companionship of my friends, of you.
I still remember when they rushed in at the dead of the night, hair matted, eyes wild, lips curled and snarling. I do not blame them, not now, not when I have been hardened by the violence and inhumanity that had hardened them, ignorance of society, of family, of friends…
It was the first time I saw you in action. Despite the wild eyes and unsheathed knives around me, gleaming menacingly in the soft ivory glow of moonlight, I still felt a flutter of excitement when I looked at your tense frame, cold, dangerous…
The childish, ah, so wanton, idolising instincts told me, pleaded with me, that you would be there to protect me, just like you protected father during the war.
I saw father pick you up and load you, setting you against the fire of the madmen, I saw one of your bullets whizz out, for the first time in my life, I saw you as who you really were, brave, steeled, dangerous.
Then in a flash of gleaming steel, I saw you wrenched out of my father’s grasp, and instead you looked at him with those sharp eyes, no hint of recognition passing as you shot your master…
You would not, you could not…
Yet you did. There were father and mother lying in one pool of blood, united even in death. How I longed to be with them.
But no. a strange gasp of enraged possessiveness shot through me as I threw myself at those savages and tore you out of their grasp, putting a bullet through their hearts, claiming you as mine, only mine…
Long years have passed. Yet you never leave my side. Ironical, considering this was when I did want you to leave, my protector, my hero, my idol. But that was years back, back before I saw you for who you were—a cold hearted savage, a killing machine.
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