He sat aiming the empty plastic bottle in his hand like a gun at people around, quite unconscious of her observant eyes. The musty September wind danced among the freshly painted green, often shaking the wet haired trees into spraying the soft, moist grass with untimely showers of dew. She didn't like this innate streak of violence that he often displayed so effortlessly. In fact, it disturbed her to the core. And yet there was something so attractive and stirring about his calm face....his akward movements...his striking black hair against the white of his skin. "I like curly hair...soft, black curly hair" he mumbled still pointing his plastic bottle gun. She tucked a curl behind her ear without a blush. He just made her uncomfortable. He never made her blush. "Who are you trying to shoot?" she asked nervously. He put down the bottle and looked straight at her with eyes of coal that would ignite any moment. "Everyone". She looked away, not wanting to let him know how scared it made her feel. "Why do you keep telling people you want to shoot them?" she brought herself to ask. "My relatives were militants....this is all I have ever heard as a child." The matter of fact tone had a creepy feel to it that made her want to hug him and distance herself from him all at the same time. She nodded and kept quiet. There was nothing much that could be said to statements such as these. He seemed to sense her discomfort and the creeping, crawling silence between them. "The military occupied my house" he continued, as if the story were to end on a happy note. "We went to live with our uncle". She had not yet managed to say a word. She wasn't good at consolation and a 'everything will be alright' was hardly appropriate. Nothing had been alright for 69 long years. Nothing could possibly be. "My house is still under military occupation" he seemed to have again read her mind. For moments his house seemed to represent the entire Valley in its microcosom. He sighed and tossed the bottle away. "I couldn't take it any longer...so I moved out" he whispered before taking out pills from his bag and popping them in his mouth with a shivering, epileptic hand.

She mutely watched the devastation.

Love was too ashamed...affection too scared...humanity long dead.