Last past the gate

There wasn’t so much to say about his current situation. 

Another rolling sound woke him up before sleep could fully claim him, the sound of an aeroplane taking off into the dark skies above the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. It was a flight like any other, an engine sound he knew was different but without the skills or the ear to tell apart. He exhaled a breath of exasperation, at nothing in particular, just his misaimed sense of existence.

He smiled as kids voiced their opinions at everything they saw, their parents not giving a rat’s ass to their noise and banter. Jeremy remembered when he used to be like that, a constant nag at his late mother’s side, but making her smile and beam in happiness all the same. A mother’s love is late in being appreciated, a bit too late in his situation, but when the full effect and the breadth of it hit Jeremy, tears led to a gladness words could not explain. 

He was a truly loved child, and his mother was an angel to him. There was a not a moment of his childhood which he would change, the lessons learnt and the bruises earned. All the kisses of encouragement, and the screams and stern lectures that his mother used to give him was what moulded him and shaped him, which led him to this fateful day.

A bell rang through the speakers, signalling his chance to board his flight. The mood was sombre as Jeremy and the people flying off to Libya left their seats at the gate to walk to the military plane that waited to ferry them. The children saluted him in the best way they could, his uniform riddled with velcroed badges denoting his rank, his successes and his designation. Not only was he one of the First Asian Trapper Squad, elite and dreaded commandos, he was the leader of his squadron. With his lieutenant in tow, Captain Jeremy Woo Chow walked into the skywalk and towards the flight.

He, along with all his squad and people who knew them, did not expect to come back alive from the war. He wished the refugees well.