[ WP ] `` Do you still think about what you did ? ''

I drummed my fingers on the mahogany desk I'd gotten a few years back, thinking about something an old friend of mine had said. We'd been at a reunion of the battalion from The War a few weeks ago, the 117th Pennsylvania, and I was with a couple old squad buddies, when my friend, Ryan, asked me about...'' The Thing'', as we described it oh so ominously, so as not to think too much about it, `` Do you still think about what you did?'' 
 
 It was Northern France, May 1918. We had been in the trenches a few weeks, having been shipped there in February, and three days after we'd gotten off the boat, we saw service for the first time. Now, it was May then, with the trees blooming, the air being warm and pleasant, and such other poetic shit. We were in a small village near the Belgian border, where my squad, with Ryan, Michael, and O'Sean were patrolling in the wee hours of the morning, where we noticed a small light coming from one of the scnt few undamaged buildings there. This village, i cant remember the name of it, went back'n forth every couple or weeks, and this building was n't occupied by any of our men, so we went inside, and saw a... I hesitate to call it a man, but more of a young boy in a German uniform, sleeping away. We looked at each other, and I knelt down, unlatched my bayonet from its scabbard, and quietly guided it into the kids gullet. We all felt a bile in the back of our throats as I did this, but we knew we had to do it. So when Ryan brought it up, it got me thinking about the kid. He had so many opportunities, so many chances, yet he lost them all when I slid my knife into him. 
 
 `` Alex, are you alright?'' My assistant, Nancy Hedgins, asked me. I'd met her in'20, when I was setting up my agency, and helped me out. Its been 7 years since then, and we've strictly kept our relationship work-based. That is n't to say there have n't been escapades... 
 
 Anyway, I askedher, brushing off her comment, `` I'm alright, just thinking about something. You got a few leads on a case for me?'' 
 
 `` Yeah, bit of a creepy one. Turns out someone's found a few more bodies near the U.S. Steel Mill. These had a letter with them, addressed to you.'' She said, handing him a slightly bulky letter that had an off-white color to it, along with his name, Alexander Dunois, on it. I opened it, to reveal immediately the words that stopped me in my tracks, `` From One Soldier to Another''. My hands shook a little as I unfolded the letter, and I read it, for thirty minutes in silence as Nancy got me my cup of coffee with creme and sugar, which is n't what you expect from a hard boiled detective, but we've all got our own little personal delights. 
 
 As I finished reading the letter, I quietly asked her, `` Nancy, do you... remember-'' 
 
 She knew what I was thinking about, and replied quickly, `` Yes, I do. And **how** does it relate to the case?'' as she began typing at her typewriter for that fiction magazine of her. 
 
 I sat up from my chair, grabbing my cane, and hobbled a little bit over to the coatstand, where I got my trenchcoat, hat, and pistol. As I got my coat on, I told her, `` It relates, since the kid is who I believe to be the suspect.'' 
 
 `` You know you should n't go out like that, since the Doc said for you not to do cases until you're better.'' Nancy remarked, the typewriter sounding much like a machine gun. 
 
 `` Bah whatever.'' I replied as I walked out the door. I thought to myself, *Well, I still think about `` The thing'', Ryan, and now I can confront it head on. * 
 
 
 Constructive Crit is appreciated. 

