Charles Jensen | Writer

“My people are going to be waiting for me out there, so I won’t be able to say goodbye properly.”

“I know. That’s all right.”

“No, it really isn’t. It’s a travesty.”

“But I understand.”

“OK, here’s what I’m going to do. Just before I leave the airport, I’m going to come up to you and say, Do you work here?“

“It’s OK. I really do understand.”

“No, this is important to me. I’ll say, Do you work here? And then you say your part.”

“What’s my part?”

“You say, No.“

“OK.”

“And I’ll know what you mean. We’ll know the secret meaning.”

“OK.”

We looked into each other’s eyes in a way that said that nothing else mattered as much as us. I asked myself if I would kill my parents to save his life, a question I had been posing since I was fifteen. The answer always used to be yes. But in time all those boys had faded away and my parents were still there. I was now less and less willing to kill them for anyone; in fact, I worried for their health. In this case, however, I had to say yes. Yes I would.