Five People From Completely Different Backgrounds Seated Together [FICTOID]

The helicopter flew low and fast over the dense green jungles of Vietnam.

Only a few trained expert eyes could see the healed over scars from the war.

“This is where we fought,” said the father of the groom, an old man in his seventies.  “There, on those hills.”

“Why come here at all?” the bride’s mother asked.  She was Chinese and married into the bride’s family.

“I was drafted,” said the old man.  “They sent us here to stop the spread of communism.”

“Did you?”

The old man laughed bitterly.  “Of course not.  Otherwise we wouldn’t be here now, would we?”

The helicopter began a wide, slow turn, heading towards the country club where the wedding would take place.

The wedding photographer, a transgender man from Ireland, looked through the lens of zeir camera and snapped pictures.  “It seems like such a waste,” zey said.  “Perpetual war over inconsequential differences.”

“They didn’t think they were inconsequential at the time,” said the Italian best man.  “The stakes were the survival of their way of life.”

“Whose way of life?” asked his husband, a German chemist with a pronounced yet cute overbite.  “The Americans or the Vietcong?”

“Both,” said the best man.

“Neither,” said the bride’s mother.

“Fasten your seatbelts,” crackled the pilot’s voice over the intercom.

The five passengers dutifully did so as the helicopter swooped down to the hidden club.

Vietnam, The Sequel, the groom’s father thought sourly.

© Buzz Dixon