…Only the dead have seen the end of war. (Plato)
Or so they say.
There was always dust. Dust in my eyes, my hair, and my breath. Everywhere was dusty so I stopped trying to clean the windows everyday. We didn’t go out much; we usually just stay at home and listen to death on the box machine. Schools were out. The park wasn’t a park anymore, it smelled of burned childhood.
We had soups that did not taste like soup for days. Father went out everyday and he always came back looking a year older. One night he came home so old that I couldn’t tell it was he. We lived on. After sometime, I watched my little brothers’ body shrink in on itself. He got very small. He became a baby again; mother did everything for him just like when he was born. I don’t remember how it happened but when he went to sing with the angels, fathers old eyes cried streams of tears and mother broke into so many little pieces that went flying all over the house that we could not put her back together. She slept a lot but she never cried.
The sounds of gunshot and buildings falling always put me to sleep. Sometimes I get scared when I hear the screams of my friends and when I can’t hear their screams anymore; I get off my little bed, kneel by the side and say a prayer for them and my little brother. I used to cry a lot I remember.
The day it happened, it was very quiet; mother was in bed staring into space and father wanted to go see what was in the market. I went with him. I held his very old thin looking hands and wore my slippers. They were two different kinds. I walked with him along the street, we skipped over the rubble and I saw my uncles crumbled home. The street was empty, except for a bird or two, mindlessly chirping away. I saw a dog limp past us. I remembered that dog. It used to chase all the street kids. Now it just looked so sad, whimpering away on its broken leg. We reached the market and there was a fruit stand so we went to it. We got 3 oranges and a couple of grapes and one banana. The old man at the stand gave me a small apple. We walked back onto the street and the sound we heard was so loud I fell to the ground. I saw fathers eyes grow wide. He looked so pretty, just like my little brother. He tried to help me up but my ankle hurt so bad I couldn’t stand. We heard another sound, a familiar one this time, gunshot. The blood sipped slowly through my chest and I could see tears falling from my fathers’ eyes.
My mother never spoke again and my father kept getting older. They buried me next to my little brother and I heard them say three of my friends were close by too. There was a time before the green uniformed soldiers came that this ground was a garden, filled with beautiful flowers and smelled of roses and lilies. Now it smells like death and it holds the souls of dead children. Everything changed, I saw mother die of heartbreak and I watched the day they dropped one on our house. Father slept in a little tent where our house used to be and some nights, I hear him ask God why he hasn’t taken him too. I cried with him. He had no family left.
Some days I sit and watch the war go on in front of my fathers’ tent and some days I wander the old garden where I lie with the other kids. I haven’t met mother or my little brother yet. Maybe when father joins us, we will be a family again, in a place where gardens held flowers and parks smelled like childhood and innocence.
Or so they say.
There was always dust. Dust in my eyes, my hair, and my breath. Everywhere was dusty so I stopped trying to clean the windows everyday. We didn’t go out much; we usually just stay at home and listen to death on the box machine. Schools were out. The park wasn’t a park anymore, it smelled of burned childhood.
We had soups that did not taste like soup for days. Father went out everyday and he always came back looking a year older. One night he came home so old that I couldn’t tell it was he. We lived on. After sometime, I watched my little brothers’ body shrink in on itself. He got very small. He became a baby again; mother did everything for him just like when he was born. I don’t remember how it happened but when he went to sing with the angels, fathers old eyes cried streams of tears and mother broke into so many little pieces that went flying all over the house that we could not put her back together. She slept a lot but she never cried.
The sounds of gunshot and buildings falling always put me to sleep. Sometimes I get scared when I hear the screams of my friends and when I can’t hear their screams anymore; I get off my little bed, kneel by the side and say a prayer for them and my little brother. I used to cry a lot I remember.
The day it happened, it was very quiet; mother was in bed staring into space and father wanted to go see what was in the market. I went with him. I held his very old thin looking hands and wore my slippers. They were two different kinds. I walked with him along the street, we skipped over the rubble and I saw my uncles crumbled home. The street was empty, except for a bird or two, mindlessly chirping away. I saw a dog limp past us. I remembered that dog. It used to chase all the street kids. Now it just looked so sad, whimpering away on its broken leg. We reached the market and there was a fruit stand so we went to it. We got 3 oranges and a couple of grapes and one banana. The old man at the stand gave me a small apple. We walked back onto the street and the sound we heard was so loud I fell to the ground. I saw fathers eyes grow wide. He looked so pretty, just like my little brother. He tried to help me up but my ankle hurt so bad I couldn’t stand. We heard another sound, a familiar one this time, gunshot. The blood sipped slowly through my chest and I could see tears falling from my fathers’ eyes.
My mother never spoke again and my father kept getting older. They buried me next to my little brother and I heard them say three of my friends were close by too. There was a time before the green uniformed soldiers came that this ground was a garden, filled with beautiful flowers and smelled of roses and lilies. Now it smells like death and it holds the souls of dead children. Everything changed, I saw mother die of heartbreak and I watched the day they dropped one on our house. Father slept in a little tent where our house used to be and some nights, I hear him ask God why he hasn’t taken him too. I cried with him. He had no family left.
Some days I sit and watch the war go on in front of my fathers’ tent and some days I wander the old garden where I lie with the other kids. I haven’t met mother or my little brother yet. Maybe when father joins us, we will be a family again, in a place where gardens held flowers and parks smelled like childhood and innocence.
