Years have passed and how I am anxiously watching the twilight of my childhood, quietly sinking, never to rise again.

Endless moons, an opaque universe, thunder, tornadoes, the quaking earth. Rare moments of peace; forehead up against my knees, arms around my head, I though, I listened, I longed not to exist. but life was there, a transparent pearl, a star revolving slowly on its own axis.

I have written too much about lives - I feel I have lived for too long.

I envied these women I saw before me, their beauty still intact. Life has its revenge of life. Untimely death is the secret of eternal youth.

Out on the street I start to run; I need to breathe in this life, the trees, the warmth of my town. I will be able to control my own fate and I will know how to be happy. Happiness is something you lay siege to, it is a battle . . .

I talk to trees and animals. We have interesting conversations about food, weather, and love. They sometimes can predict the future.

Tomorrow we will be nothing but earth and dust. Who will remember the love a soldier once knew?