When I heard your organization was recording testimonies, I knew I had to come. She died in my arms, saying 'I don't want to die.' That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore.

She extended a hand that I didn't know how to take, so I broke its fingers with my silence.

Books are for those without real lives, he thought. And they are no real replacement.

My point is that there are a lot of forces, like the media and the general political rhetoric tells us we should have more. That we should do better than our parents and have a bigger house or a better car.

I realized I was on a something island. 'How did I get here,' I wondered, surrounded by Nothing, "and how can I get back?

I watched the sheets breathe when she breathed, like how Dad used to say that trees inhale when people exhale, because I was too young to understand the truth about biological processes.

In truth I was manufacturing a brick wall of shits.