Thursday, XXXX
It has been long since I wrote to you. Sweet one, here is to another day! We enter civilization! I am pleased to inform you, Unni is getting better. They all do say I would have made a real good nurse. And I told them, thank my friend from home, who has taught me how to handle such sicknesses by falling ill regularly, every second month- and they did toast to you. Dear one, I keep thinking of you. There are charming young people in the local pub, ones that do know how to smile in the toughest times, and yet, I wish for your company so dearly it opens a gaping chasm somewhere beneath the lapels of my uniform.
I miss you. I miss you like the scorched earth misses the wet splash of monsoon and like the monsoon sky misses the sun. And I do long for you to be here, beside me, leading me, like the Pole star leads nocturnal ships, and the bright moon leads the night traveler.
But no more of such thoughts. Tomorrow the local boys are having a little match. Such as youth, to pluck flowers of joy from thorniest bushes and weeds. We put it in our list – Unni and I - for an empty scrap of paper with 'swimming' written on top, then crossed over does our reputation little good.
I would tell you of our work, all the places I have seen and been to, all the people I have fought, all the people I have met, except, I fear this may fall into wrong hands, and my melancholy and boredom shall cost one of my comrades their life.
They deserve better. They all deserve so much better. All those who fight for no reason other than the mad ambition of the ones they serve - they deserve so much better. All the suns and moons and stars of the universe can measure not up to them. There are still great ones on Earth. There is still hope for us all.
Sincerely yours,
The Soldier
YOU ARE READING
At War
Romance"Revenge by young men is considered victory, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose know better." -Chief Seattle This is an anti- war epistolary novella written for ONC 2022. Prompts 5 and...
