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I sometimes find it difficult to think about him. Especially when I think about the little things he does. Like when he smiles, those extremely rare times, he flinches just a little bit. As if it causes him pain to be happy. Although it's not that much better when he's serious, the way he nervously looks to the right if I compliment him in any way, his sharp intakes of breath if I remind him of something he does not want to be reminded of. His sheepish barely noticeable bending of his knees when he is insulted and that subtle extra flutter of his eyelashes when he is nervous. I find it hard to think about how these little mannerisms have come about. Were they natural? Something he had unconsciously picked up from his parents, or automatic reactions to things that he had experienced in the past. No, I didn't wonder, I knew. He had told me once, what seemed like a century ago.

In reality it was a very short time ago, but it was a time that I'd willed with all my heart to forget. I knew that in the army, Conor was not allowed to smile, as it showed rebellion or stupidity. I had asked him why? How could a soundless movement of the mouth indicate rebellion or ignorance? He had said that the officers thought that if someone smiled, they were either laughing at them or stupid enough to be enjoying the hell hole of a war we'd got ourselves into. His disgusted face had forever been engraved into my memory as he recounted the hundreds of times he had received a humiliating beating in front of his whole troop for smiling at a faint memory. The time he had nearly been shot because of laughing at his friends joke. I had been furious as he went into detail, not realising how much pain this put me in. Not a word was uttered from my mouth as he described his pain, anguish and distress as letters were sent to his home town, describing how he had let his troop down. Strangely, I wanted to hear what he had gone through and was hurt and intrigued as more and more descriptive words were chucked in my direction. Gradually, his ability to smile was a long forgotten gift that was hard to regain. It was not an automatic reaction to something funny or sweet as with me, it took effort for him to smile and I knew this now. To make it clear, he did not open up this easily, I had asked for everything and he couldn't refuse and let me not know his history, who he really was.
His nervous glances to right were a result of memories of people's compliments in the war. To say that you had killed more than 10 people in one day was an amazing feat. He would get congratulated for hours, unable to understand why joy and pride, who had always walked hand in hand with congratulation, could not come to him. You see even in the war, he knew that the killing was wrong, not for a greater good as people had said. The rest had been brainwashed, unknowing of their previous world of civilisation and humanity, before the war. The immense guilt Conor felt of being involved in something that glorified murder was to much to bear. His sharp intakes of breath were simply a result of the shock he felt in remembering his old life....When someone insulted him in the army, he couldn't take the hit, and that was not just metaphorically. Fights with his officer took place, simply because he couldn't accept his own failure. That was why his knees bent slightly, an automatic reflex to the punches he would receive when he got angry and dished them out himself.

When he told me these horrifying things I thought back to them, flinched with the memory and couldn't bear to believe they were true. He had told me more, said worse things that he had had done to him that were painful to even talk about. Before the war, people would of thought that these were lies. Although we were now in the midst of it all, death, pain and fear. To some people, Conors stories were nothing they hadn't heard of before. I was only happy for one thing, that that small extra flutter of his eyelashes was 100% my Conor, and nothing else.