Nobody knew...

The prompt read "Write a sentence starts Nobody Knew. A sentence, huh? Here's my post"

Nobody knew why the quiet, unassuming old man always wore long sleeves when he walked uptown to the Post Office to get his mail. Nobody really thought about. But one little girl noticed. And she became curious. So, one cloudy, rainy Saturday as she accompanied her mom into the Post Office, she saw him. He wore long sleeves, same as always. Her curiosity got the better of her, so she ran up to him, and said, "Mr O'Riley, I'm Olivia. Can I ask you a question?"

Leaning on his cane, Mr O'Riley smiled and said, "Sure! What can I do for you?"

"Why do you always wear long sleeves?"

Mr O'Riley took a deep breath as her mom tried to apologize and drag her away. But he stopped her. "It's OK, ma'am. I'll answer her questions.

"Olivia, there's a place far, far away ..."

"Like in 'Shrek?'"

He snickered. "Well, maybe not that far away, but still a long ways away. A long time ago, I served as a sniper in a war that was fought there." He slowly rolled one sleeve up to show a myriad of tattoos. "I wear long sleeves so people won't see these tattoos. People said bad things about me when I came home and weren't nice to me, and I don't want to go through that again."

"What did they say?"

Mr O'Riley looked at Olivia's mom, a sad look on both their faces. "I don't want to say. Just be satisfied with bad things, OK? Altogether too soon, you'll learn."

"And I hope you'll be as ashamed as I am," Olivia's mom said quietly. Grandpa Dexter said some of those bad thing."

"Why Mommy? Why did Grandpa Dexter say bad things?"

"Don't worry about it, Sweetheart," Mr O'Riley said. "I happen to know Grandpa Dexter. Your grandpa is a fine man. He apologized to me a long time ago.".