Read The Chronicles of Amon book 2 The Sea of Marmara Page 42

  Chapter 2.

  For a few days after the accident, he was the center of attention on all the news programs. Talking heads endlessly discussed how miraculous it was that he had escaped uninjured while his wife had been mangled and trapped in the twisted mess that had once been their car.

  Reporters shoved microphones in his face, asking asinine questions: “How do you feel about loosing your wife?” “What are your plans now that you’re alone?” “Do you think you’ll be re-marrying any time soon?” Instinctively he wanted to lash out, to scream “Leave me alone!” But the absurdity of the questions and the profundity of his loss compelled him to ignore them and just turn away . . . to turn inward.

  After a few days the sensationalism of the accident wore thin. The media lost interest and moved on to more ‘news-worthy’ events, like the fire on the east side where a family of four was asphyxiated and then burned to death while they were sleeping. Or the “gang related” shooting that had occurred last night just a few blocks from here.

  Finally, Aaron was left alone to work through his grief. He went from day to day mechanically, becoming accustomed to feelings of numbed detachment.

  Religious leaders and a few close friends sought to comfort him with explanations of how he had experienced some sort of miraculous event. In an effort to placate them so they’d leave him alone, he went along with whatever they suggested. But deep in his heart he knew that they were wrong. There was more to it than that.

  This wasn’t at all an unfamiliar state of mind for him. Loss of a loved one was always painful. It was, just by its very nature, right? It always brought the bereaved into full confrontation with their own mortality. It was the natural order of things. Certainly!

  But why was it then, that he wasn’t “overcome with grief” over the loss of his beautiful wife? The question plagued him as much as, if not more than, did the loss itself.

  Was he such a cad that he felt only mild remorse over loosing her? The more he thought about it the more he began to believe that death, although abrupt, was not the end. It was only a stepping stone. He had seen it so many times. . . .

  What was he saying!? “So many times!” The only direct experience he had with death was when his parents died. He didn’t even remember that clearly. He was only four or five when it happened.

  Memories of his childhood and up bringing had always been somewhat confused . . . unclear. They seemed more like movies than actual memories. Try though he might, he could never seem to focus on any particular event. The few photos he had of his childhood did provide evidence he had actually been places and done things. But somehow they seemed unreal, like they had happened in another life or had happened to someone else.

  Aaron was raised as an only child and was orphaned around age 5. At least that was what he could piece together. He didn’t know his exact age since all the family records were destroyed when the house caught fire. His mother and father were both killed in the fire. Authorities found him, a young boy some time later, wandering down a street not far from the still-burning house. All he had with him was a cigar box filled with a few prized possessions, and the pajamas he was wearing.

  In that cigar box he had a few pictures of himself taken on camping trips and one of him riding his new bike. He had only two pictures of himself taken with his parents. An old wrinkled black-and-white showed him at about age 3. He was standing between his parents, holding their hands. It was a close-up, so mother and father’s faces were out of the frame.

  The other one, an old faded Polariod showed him with his father in a swimming pool. He looked to be a year or so older in this one. He was standing chest-deep in the water wearing goggles. He had a snorkel in his mouth. His father was standing next to him. The water only came up to the top of his father’s trunks. He was wearing sunglasses and had some white stuff smeared all over his nose. He had his arm around him. He was smiling.