For a few moments, she could
not find her voice. She just stared at
the scar.
“Are you going to let me have that cocoa anytime soon?”
The old man laughed.
He removed his hand from her
grasp and slipped his fingers through the mug’s handle. He savored the warmth and creamy sweetness of
his drink and hoped his daughter’s focus would redirect from his hand to her
cocoa. She took a seat, cradling the mug
in her hands and thinking about what she wanted to say.
“Dad, I couldn’t help but notice you named some of the
characters after your friends.” Erica
mused. “It’s been a while since I’ve
seen them… but I remember Demetrios and I’m guessing Eleon is for your friend
Leon. Come to think of it, you have a
friend named Linus too.”
“You’re beating around the bush, little girl. I suspect there’s something else you mean to
ask me, so get on with it. It’s almost
my bedtime too.”
He gave his daughter a wink
then took another sip of his drink. He
was proud of the way her mind worked, always thinking ahead, always planning
and working out problems. She got that from me, he thought,
grinning.
“So does that mean P.J. is actually Praxis?” She asked,
half laughing yet hoping he would not confirm her statement.
“Nothing gets by you, does it? Praxis isn’t a popular
name anymore so P.J. seems to be a better fit nowadays. Now, are you really sure you want to go
barking up this particular tree? I’m not
so convinced you’ll want to hear this.”
“C’mon, Dad, you’re not really going to tell me that you’re
a member of The Brotherhood of Eternal Glory and you’re going to live
forever. Obviously, that’s not the case
because you’ve clearly aged over the years so… nice try.”
The old man smiled, placed a
kiss on his daughter’s head and bid her good night. He shuffled off to the bathroom to brush his
teeth and put on his pajamas. He removed
the stage makeup that gave him wrinkles and dark spots to camouflage his
flawless skin then combed the sprayed-in gray out of his hair. That night in his dreams, he relived his
induction into the brotherhood forty-five years ago. There in Vietnam, his squad was under heavy
fire. Reinforcements came to their aid only
they had not realized it was the brotherhood.
He was sharing a foxhole with the two remaining members of his squad and
four captains named Demetrios, Leon (he had dropped the E by then) P.J. and
Linus. The captains had been impressed
by the young men’s bravery and integrity so they shared a little bit about a
secret society to which they belonged.
The young man named William was intrigued though there was a small
tidbit of information that the captains had withheld. They had neglected to mention the part about
being unable to die because they’d been cursed to fight evil for all
eternity. Emboldened by poetic words
about battling evil, tyranny and oppression, William pledged to join their
brotherhood. He’d willingly pricked his
palm with the strange curved blade and the four captains welcomed him with open
arms. Shortly after, an air attack
dropped bombs all around them. When
William opened his eyes, there were craters and body parts strewn across the
countryside yet he and the four captains were completely unharmed. It was then that they dropped their own bomb
on him. He had a pretty new bride
waiting for him at home so his reception to the news was mixed. It was after he’d been discharged that his
new “brothers” taught him techniques to appear to age over the years. He’d
never told anyone, not even his wife about his secret. When he woke, he knew he could not reveal the
truth to Erica either. He resolved to
tell her he was only making up a fun story for the kids so he used the name of
his friends and took advantage of his strange looking scar for embellishment.
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