The following is a custom short for an "out of this world" Litster who has chosen to remain anonymous. As per his request, this work is dedicated to the folks of the Playground board and any fans I may have already gathered. Without further ado:
It was the battle of San Jacinto. The Spanish, under the command of the dictator, Santa Anna, had nearly routed the rebels and freedom fighters at every turn. But this battle seemed different, soon Texas would be free!
Looping around the hill, Lyle spied a lone Spanish soldier on the retreat. Lying flat in order to remain undetected, he aimed his rife. Adjusting for the wind and the gun's kickback, Lyle held his breath and pulled the trigger. The soldier fell in a cloud of gunpowder. For today, it seemed, his work was done.
The crowd applauded as he helped his friend, Richard, to his feet. "I'm glad that whore was able to seduce old Santa Anna, or we might be doing this the other way around!" Lyle joked.
It had been a straight reenactment, no tactical strategy involved. After all, those were the only kind allowed on federal land for the public to watch. "Still, we got taken over by America anyway." Richard laughed back. ***
Lyle showered in his hotel room and carefully packed his uniform. His replica rifle was lovingly wrapped in a sheet of leather. Even in Texas, you can't just walk around a hotel lobby with a gun, even if it only fired blanks and looked 200-years old.
With a cup of complimentary coffee in his hand, Lyle was sitting in the hotel lobby waiting for a cab to the bus station. As he absentmindedly scanned the milling crowd, he spotted a pair of deep brown eyes. The lightly-tanned freckled face that surrounded those eyes was perfect enough to have been cast in porcelain and painted by a master craftsman. The woman had blonde hair tied up in a high, messy bun. Lyle raised his styrofoam cup of dish-water java in a friendly salute. The woman smiled back, then swiftly lowered her eyes. She was wearing cut-off denim shorts and a white tank-top with an open green plaid button-up shirt over it.
Lyle thought she was one of the most beautiful sights he had seen since his high school girlfriend. Lyle always wished he had stuck with his first love, Judy, but he had started dating a cheerleader senior year. He ended up marrying the skank. Ten years later and three kids later, she cheated on him with a co-worker and left with the kids and a big, fat alimony check.
Lyle was snapped out of musings by a soft, musical throat-clear. "Excuse me, but weren't you one of the reinactors?" Said the girl with the fertile earth eyes.
"Yeah, I'm Lyle. I plaid Corporal Hezikiah McQuaid."
