Particles of Bitterness

Amid the smoke and dust, I watch the child soldier. I want to see him more clearly. I focus on his face, but it is indistinguishable. His body, like the smoke, seems on the verge of condensation. The hesitant dots capturing his physicality have faded him away. I do not know where he is rushing to at this speed, nor do I know his fate — and perhaps it is better that I do not know; for this ignorance allows me to hope, to postpone the darkness of war in my mind and optimistically imagine that he is alive and well now. To imagine that the bitterness of war’s experience does not torment his mind, and that what he once saw in this plain and among the palms has not torn his pure heart apart.

If only war were nothing more than a mere illusion like all these, and I could believe that these grains composing the photograph are cloud of fantasy and illusion — and that this image is a false imprint on paper, without any evidence or reliance on reality.