The Blood that Dried Years Ago It was a chill night in Washington as they delivered the news through a buzzing screen in a clean well-lighted room. There were murmurs and cheers below, by the large white house. After a while, he got up and searched for a glass of water, sipping quietly as more states were called in. “It is time to hope,” he tells her. Irene was sitting in the chair beside him. She was beautiful in her age and the light blurred the edges of her eyes as they reflected blue and red. They joked quietly about the years to come and the progress that could be made, but even in her company he remained alone. For, there is no lonelier man in death, except the suicide, than the man who has lived many years with a good wife and then outlived her. He looked upon Irene now, but could only see another woman he had loved in his youth and pledged to marry after the war. If two people love each other, there can be no happy end to it, he thought, and there can be no more after a love is done. “It is like a battle, but not one that can be fought for the fighting will only begin when the war is over” she says. He remembers the fighting though, but he would not tell her about his days among the 442nd or when the bullets caressed his face and tumbled into his stomach. These were the matters of men who had distinguished themselves in life and understood that all lives will end in the same way. “It is,” he agrees. There had been blood and he was glad when it was there no more. The grenades had been plentiful and he had thrown them with ease as the blood flowed. Everyone had told him, “You have a good aim Inouye. You throw the grenade as if it does not fight gravity and simply seeks to fly”. But they had shouted no as clenched in a fist that suddenly did not belong to him anymore, he threw his last grenade. When he finished, the fight had not finished with him and there would be many nights when his hand no longer seemed a part of him nor him a part of it and many nights when he remembered the blood that had flown freely. Time passed. He watched until the room flooded with blue and people began to declare the battle over. Another man had made his mark tonight and would die distinguished in life. He rose and walked outside into the darkness where the bells towed the hour of the night. They did not toll for the new victor; they tolled for him and the blood that had dried years ago.