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AshleyAE44

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<div style="border:1px #ccc solid; background-image:url('/images/ray.gif'); font-family:arial; width:200px; padding:5px;"><center><div style="font-size:20px;"><a href="/story/AshleyAE44/28205">Pastor Eric 3</a></div><table><tr><td width="50"><div style="color:#2CC362; font-size:15px; padding-top:4px; background-image:url('/images/profratebg.gif'); background-repeat:no-repeat; width:44px; height:26px; text-align:center; font-weight:bold; vertical-align:middle; padding-top:8px; padding-left:1px; " valign="top">4</div></td><td><div style="height:100px;width:100px; padding-top:9px; background-repeat:no-repeat; background-image:url(/images/storyCover.png);"><a href="/story/AshleyAE44/28205"><div style="margin-left:9px; __padding:0px; height:90px; width:70px; background-repeat:no-repeat; background-image:url('http://www.testriffic.com/storyfiles/28205.jpg');"></div></a></div></td></tr></table></center></div>

+ 4	Pastor Eric 5
+ 4	Pastor Eric 3
+ 6	Pastor Eric 3
+ 4	Pastor Eric 2
+ 4	Pastor Eric 1
+ 5	Mystic War II
+ 8	Mystic War I
+ 3	Friday Night Antics
+ 2	In the Mirror II
+ 5	In the Mirror
+ 3	Friday Night Antics IV
+ 4	Friday Night Antics III
+ 4	Friday Night Antics II
+ 4	Friday Night Antics I

Yes, I do realize that it has been a while now since the last chapter. I guess I will try and explain a little bit about why I have not been very prompt in getting this out. Some days the best way that I deal with things is by thinking and thinking about the problem. Other days the best way that I get through the same problem is by pushing it as far out of my mind as possible. So that is why it has taken a little bit of time to get this part out to you all.

So where was I exactly? Oh, right…

At the moment I think that I’m going to gloss over things a little bit. You see, I tend to sometime view some things in life as a chemical equation. In order for the equation to work out and for the chemical reaction to occur, both sides of the equation must be equal. What you have before the reaction must equal what you have after the reaction. That is how I tend to see what happened to Eric. I remember what Eric was like before he went into the Marines, and then I remember what Eric was like when he came home.

The two sides of the equation did not add up.

And I think that that is what bothers me the most.

I saw Eric only one time after he graduated from basic training camp. He came to school during our lunch one day. I remember that I was walking down the stairs to go into the cafeteria when I saw this very tall and very skinny man standing at the bottom of the stairs. He had very little hair and looked much shrunken to me. I actually did not recognize Eric at all for the first ten glances. I thought that he was a chemo patient or something that was in visiting the school for some reason. But then I realized that it had to be Eric.

I wasn’t all that surprised to see him because Kathy had told me that Eric was going to come into the school sometime that week and it was Friday. She had told me just how lean and thin Eric was now, but it still did not prepare me for what I saw.

I ran up to Eric and gave him the biggest hug I could give him because I had not had a chance to see him since one of the last days of school the year before. He hugged me back and we broke apart and I asked him how he was doing. We talked only for a few minutes before I left him to wait for Kathy while I went in the grabbed our table.

A few minutes latter Eric and Kathy came in. Kathy sat right next to me as usual and Eric sat on the other side of her. I was busy talk to all of my other friends that were there while Eric and Kathy were immersed in a conversation of their own.

I kept looking over at Eric during that lunch period. Something seemed different to me, other than his dramatic weight loss and shorter hair cut. Something was strangely wrong to me and I could not figure out what it was until we went to band.

Once band started the next period Eric left and as he was saying good bye to Kathy I saw what was now different about Eric. Eric had always had a spark in his eye. Especially during band. He was full of pride about what he did and had always been the one to get us psyched about the up-coming football game or band contest. He used to come in and say the wildest things such as, “You can take me life away, but you can’t take me bagpipes!” or after a super bowl game he’d yell, “Browns won the super bowl! Yeah!”

But that glint that was always in his eyes was now gone. The life behind them had vanished and left us with a shell.

 I do not know why it is that I was the one that saw that. Everyone else who I have since spoken to about that time that Eric came into the school say that he seemed to be doing great. They said that he had talked about how happy he was in the Marines and how excited he was to be going to learn how to handle ‘the big guns’. They all thought that he was doing just fine; better than fine.

I would have given anything to see that Eric. The Eric that was happy with his life and proud of what he had done thus far in his military career. But the Eric that I saw was just so different. He was now quiet and soft-spoken. Almost shy.

That day Eric and Kathy said good bye and he left the band room without another word. When he walked out of the room I was so confused by what I had seen in that half hour. The difference between the Eric that I knew and the Eric that had shown up at school completely mystified me.

Everyone around me was saying about how great Eric was doing now that he was in the Marines and how good it was for him. No one else had seen what I had seen. I figured, no, I hoped that was I saw was just a figment of my imagination and whenever Eric came back again I would see what everyone else had seen.

Little did I know that I was right. What I had seen was maybe not a fluke at all as I had imagined or hoped. But I would have given anything to have been wrong.

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