Still So Young But Somehow So Much Older

When I was young my father left often, another capital I'd never heard of, another base dark and dingy, another Sunday afternoon spent watching him pack. He didn't mind that I watched, didn't get annoyed, say I was in the way, he was always nice then, and I guess it's because he was leaving.

He'd get these big bags of food and other useful things like soap and insect spray. Ration packs is what he called them. I used to sit on the worn carpet, legs crossed, my eyes scanning the pile, seeing what I could claim for myself. I don't remember how old I was when he first started, but he began to give me his chocolate rations. Small blocks for my still small hands. Wrapped in white plastic, 'milk chocolate' spelled out in black letters, my hands pressing the block, trying to find the indents. "Don't you get hungry Dad?" I used to ask, looking at the contents of his ration pack. "Nah darl," he would say, "I'm used to it by now," he'd smile.

My father sent me letters when he went away, and I'm not sure, but I think I sent him letters back. He told me once that he found them, I said we were driving to the place I was born, me, mum and my older brother, but we got a flat tire and it never snowed. December 1995, that's what he said. His letters were different. He talked about the boredom and the loneliness, how they had to sleep in a shroud of nets cause the mozzies were real bad over there, said he missed us, that he would be home soon.

He was usually gone for weeks at a time, sometimes months but he always left me his chocolate rations and he always brought home cheap cigarettes for my mother. I don't know what my brother got, he wanted a new pair of Reeboks, but I don't think they had those where my father was. 'Duty free', the cigarettes were, I never knew what that meant, but I knew it must have been something good because my mother always asked for it.

My mother must have been lonely all those weeks and months, but my father always came back home. I don't know if I was ever afraid, that one day he might stop coming back, that one day there would be no more chocolate, no more cigarettes, no more Dad. But I got used to him leaving, I knew my mother hated it, but she'd get used to it too, and in the end, she had to.