Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Walter

This was written for creative writing again... But i'm just growing so much with it that i want to share with everyone... This is my "character sketch" based on a character someone else created.

Walter's day began as it always had. Left foot, right foot, stand up, walk to the bath room, urinate and then splash cold water on his face. Now 59 years old Walter had began most of his days in the last 38 years in much the same manner. Walter has always lived his life very routinely. Following a plan. Doing things the way they had been done the day before, the week before, the year before. And this was all right with him. Walter often told himself that he was thankful he didnt have a nagging wife or meddlesome kids or a gaggle of unruly grandkids like the other guys down at the union. But the truth was as Walter got older he was begining to question some of the choices he made.
Walter joined the military as a young man, telling himself that it was his duty. To his Dad who served. And to his Mom.
Walter was always ecspecially close to his mom. Perhaps this was a consequence of her dependance on him. She had been born in Germany. She had been born Rachel Kohen. And by the time she was 16 her entire family had been killed by the Nazi's. It was in her search for answers that she met Matthew Wellington, Walters father. She came to America with him 6 months later, but she never fully left the tragedy of the war behind her. As a young child Walter witnessed her flashbacks and breakdowns time and again. Over time she came to depend on the young boy to be her constant. To never dissapoint her. Walter enlisted in the army so that his mother would be proud. Be proud that he was like his dad.
It was 1966 when he kissed his mother good bye and headed off to join thousands of other young men in a fight he understood very little about. Vietnam. When he came back his parents were strangers. Not just to him but to each other.
Walter understood for the first time that his mother had never been there with them. Not like other mothers. What she experienced during world war II and the loss of her family destroyed an essential part of her. He also understood for the first time the type of sacrifice his father had made making her his bride. After his own experinces in Veitnam he understood that this was a sacrifice made in the face of guilt. For all he had done as a solider and all he failed to do. It was then that Walter began to build the wall, the foundation a promise to himself that he would never be like his parents...If he never let anyone in, he could never lose them.
It was only now that Walter began to tire of the lonely life his wall had sequestered him to.
Posted by XO-JK :: 12:20 PM :: 0 Comments:

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