“What were you doing there?”
“Nothing worth talking about.”
At first, I thought he just didn’t want to bore me with stories. Later, I realized it was something else entirely. He wasn’t avoiding the details because they were uninteresting. He was avoiding them because they mattered too much.
But when you grow up inside a quiet life, you learn to accept silence as normal. You don’t question it too hard.
Until someone else does.
The general’s voice pulled me back into the present.
“According to official records,” he said slowly, each word chosen with care, “that man died over twenty years ago.”
If there are sentences that change your life, that was one of them.
I remember laughing at first—not because it was funny, but because it didn’t make sense. It felt like the only possible response to something so completely disconnected from reality.
“That’s not possible,” I said. “He’s been here. My whole life.”
