Two Minutes' Silence

Two Minutes’ Silence.

The moment we learnt, it was reflex. The moment fire exploded from our fingers, all was lost in what we imagined as “a cause.” Because we were told that war was inevitably freedom…inevitably. Yet the price we paid for freedom was priceless; pure blood money. Our lives were spent, wasted, all for the conquest before we melted to the earth, as final afterthought. Our anguish and frustration at the powers of war, were released with one shot after the next, gas after gas, bomb after bomb. Everywhere one looked, one saw only the merciless bloodshed and terror, none of this almighty and incredible ‘freedom’ people spoke about.

For as the mud and dirt splattered onto our faces and down our tearstained cheeks, we were left only with a distant murmuring of a memory inside our minds. A place of peace and pure serenity…a place we called home. The smothering smells of perfumes, were instead replaced by the poignant stench of death and gunpowder which made ...