Pax intrantibus, salus exeuntibus
Peace to those who enter, good health to those who depart.

It took him years to return to his childhood home. After being freed from that hell school, he found himself a bit aimless. He eventually settled himself in a cheap, two-room, one-bath apartment. What his parents left to him would fund his living for quite a few years, but with nothing else to do, he set his sights on a job. One minimum-wage job later, and yet again he was without purpose. Again, he attempted to find something to do with himself. Years after years of trying to busy himself with miniscule, meaningless activities he found himself paying for the expensive cross-country bus ride en route to the one place he was looking forward to seeing.

The long, dirt driveway was almost the exact same. The sides of it had been overtaken by overgrown, lurching weeds. Green exploded from the side of it, and as he traversed down the lengthy road, plants were elongated and reaching for him like the lost memories tucked into the furthest recesses of his mind.

The house at the top of the driveway had been aged by about a decade. The once pristine, once beautiful white paint was peeling off of the wooden siding, and what shown from underneath was waterlogged and grey. Again, green was prominent in the surroundings. Trees engulfed the little home as if it was within it's own terrarium. Weeds and grasses sprouted from the ground, verdant and tall. They tickled his knees as he walked through the sea of plant life and up to the door. It's grain had been long since faded, and it, too, was a dull grey. The life of his once vibrant home seemed to have left along with the lives of his parents.

He knocked, rose-tinted memories crashing down on his shoulders. He could see his parents inside, his mother in the kitchen with an array of workbooks spread across the table and his father snapping to a tune he'd heard on the radio whilst reading a novella. The dogs sat beneath their feet, eyes tired and bodies limp with laziness. He saw himself, at the gentle age of nine, seated in his father's lap and working at the difficult words that riddled the pages of his father's newest story. A breeze blew in from the window, rustling pages and displacing a few strands of hair, but otherwise it disturbed nothing. From outside, the dry leaves rubbed against each other on the trees, sounding like sandpaper on wood. It was perfect.

Then however, a memory painted in grey sprung to his eyes.

The television was alight with a rerun of a Saturday morning cartoon, and the wacky antics were nothing but appealing to a new ten year old. For the first time in his life, he was alone in his house. He wasn't terrified by any means, but more so intrigued by what a lone soldier could do to protect his own humble abode. When the programming took a break, he stood and began marching across the living room, imitating the motions of the soldiers he had read about during The Great War. His footsteps were methodical and stiff. He put a firm scowl on his face and continued his marching. Then, as if on command, a knock sounded and the soldier received his first mission.

He opened the door, the lock having been long rotted off. It creaked open, never like it had used to. The loud shrill of the rusted hinges resounded through the house. As he entered, he found no rose-tinted memories, nor did he find traces of even those dim ones, the ones he'd stored in the the deepest parts of his mind.

The house was in shambles. No longer did he find that luxurious bright couch, or the authentic Indian carpet that dolled up the living room. The television that he'd watched countless programs on did not stand proud in it's spot against the wall. Upon entering the kitchen, he found not the outdated appliances nor the old oaken kitchen table on which he'd used to learn. Upstairs, his room was not even a shell of what it had been. The sky blue wall paper had been torn from the walls, and what remained was the white remnants of the backing. His bed which he remembered so fondly, and yearned to sleep in once again, was merely a cold rusted frame. The light fixture overhead had fallen from the ceiling and lay in an explosion of glass shards on the rotting floor.

He couldn't move from his spot in the doorway. What was he expecting? An older woman and her husband to welcome him home? To finally teach him the meaning and the secrets behind the magic that was his childhood? Two dogs, gentle and slow, to his palms as he scratched behind their ears? For so many years he'd been away, and for so many years he'd suppressed his feelings towards their deaths. But now, it hit him like a speeding train.

And he collapsed.

Glass pierced the soft skin of his palms as he dropped to his hands and knees. He was eye level with the dust-covered ground and watched as his tears left noticeable spots in the debris. His body shook with the sadness of eight, no, nine years of hopelessness, of anguish, of numbness. He let his voice echo throughout the high ceilings of the foyer and out the front door that had been left ajar. Almost like the child he never truly got to be, he slammed his fists into the floor, begging for his mother, his father, anybody. He was tired of being alone. He wanted to be nine again and sit in his father's lap. Or curl up with the dogs in front of the fireplace. He wanted to watch his mother's eyes glow as she produced another new trick from her endless supply of wonders. He was fed up with that school and those emotionless nuns that beat him without a second thought. No longer did he want to cry himself to sleep or busy himself with piles upon piles of school work. No more hiding from his feelings. No more searching for something he knew wasn't there. No more crippling loneliness that had been mistaken for strong solitude. He wanted his mom and his dad and their warm embraces. He never wanted to be a man. All he wanted were his parents, and those were two things he could never get back.

For hours he lay on the floor, shards of glass cutting into his skin and dust settling on his being. He'd fuse with this house, become the memories tinted in rose. The soldier that answered the door at age ten, and carried out his nine year long mission was finally home. There was no mommy and no daddy to come home to. No wife, no kids, no pets. He was alone. Not even the house was there for him to return to. It had died along with his parents, and he found it increasingly harder to remember it in it's full glory. It faded with the light of the sun on the horizon, and when the soft blue gave way to deep purple, he found himself picking up the pieces of his being and meandering back down the stairs. When he reached the bottom, he looked long and hard at the door to his parent's room and could hear the laughter emanating from it. He could see the soft glow from the light beneath the peeling red door. The warmth washed over him as he stared. Then, something clicked, and he turned around and kept walking. His long strides across the living room were merely remnants of his nine year march. They were stiff, but they lacked method. There was no scowl etched onto his lips, but rather something more neutral. He opened the door wider, peering out in the ocean of grasses and weeds before him. He was a soldier, protecting this house from intruders and convicts. He was a soldier, noble in stature and mighty in manner. He was a soldier, and finally, after nine years, he was dismissed.

He dared one last look to the kitchen and saw the fall afternoon in his father's lap, before he closed the door and walked away.