Him: "When I return from deployment, I am going to marry you".
Her: "No you won't. This time next week you will have moved on to someone new. I have met your gender before".
Him: "Maybe I am different, maybe I give a damn".
Her: "I would have known if you were different. I would have known if you gave a damn. You are the same as the rest of them".
"Give him a chance, sweetheart", says a stranger from the crowd. Just a faceless person butting in.
"What's the point? He's not coming back", she says to the stranger. Said out of earshot of the man dressed in fatigues. She turns her attention back to the soldier.
Her: "You are not coming back. You are going to die in Afghanistan. You will not be marrying anyone." She turns her back towards him.
The soldier hangs his head and looks at the ground. He suddenly feels warm standing in the middle of the parking lot. Strangers overhearing their conversation look up to stare at him. No words describe his numbness, because that is what you feel when someone tells you what you already know. But how does she know?
"Lady, not only did you turn down his proposal you told him he is going to die", says a familiar face in the crowd.
She turns back around and shouts at the soldier, "You are going to die a war hero".
She turns to the familiar face, "If I tell him when and where he is going to die, he won't be at place where doing what. Death doesn't work that way. Death will find him and I can not stop it from happening. Do you want me to tell him when he is going to die? Do you want me to tell you when you are going to die?
The familiar face doesn't say anything.
"That person is going to die" and she points to a car in the parking lot.
She holds up her hand to count down to five. Five fingers. Four fingers. She yells the soldiers name out. Three, two and one. A man gets out of a vehicle and points a revolver at the driver of the vehicle. The driver is the person she pointed to. The man with the gun drives off. The soldier cradles the victims' head in his lap, her long hair falling on top of the asphalt. Blood begins to flow onto her hair.
Maybe the soldier doesn't end up marrying anyone before his life ends but he falls in love right that moment. He falls in love with a corpse.
She turns around and walks to her car. No one notices her. Did she really project someone's death? Yes, yes she did.
