Unfortunately, if the war hadn't damaged my future then the smoking would have as I had so frequently practised it I had been admitted to the hospital more than once for Bronchitis.

I got scared a lot more without my cigarettes and old rusty nail. Why? Because without them I was forced to deal with the harsh realities of war and I hated it. That was when I felt death dig into my skin and my nose became much more sensitive to the sharp stench of rotting bodies. I normally had the cigarette smoke smothering it down, if not a lot, then a little bit for tolerance.

I was bullied ruthlessly by a gang of boys with orange tans and they picked on me due to my socio-economic background - it had not been a secret that my family was not terribly rich but we lived healthily producing wheat and cotton. I had been angry for not being able to muster up the physical strength to stand up to them.

Beautiful Mother, she gave me this pencil and told me to focus on my studies to make these bullies kiss the ground I would walk on in t he future. She told me not to pierce people with the pencil but to use it in a way that would make them pay for their indecencies: study.

I really needed a part of her with me so I integrated her memory with my intolerable present as seen below with the input of the pencil in the shell of a bullet. I also wrote in my writing pad I took with me to war with this pencil.

I realised that If I had a picture of him I'd be able to keep that passion I had when I first enlisted though I'd hate to admit that it stifled as soon as the first bomb was delivered upon my arrival. The smirk hidden in his eyes was however enough to keep me going forward with the war. We were in the same unit and battalion but since he'd been in a higher rank than I had been, we never talked. There was nothing hence to talk about.

I wanted my own land. I knew more than anyone that my brother would have gotten the farm, and I wanted to be my own boss so I enlisted, convinced that with enough hope and good fighting, I'd make it out alive, ready to have my own family. I'd heard that soldiers were given land upon return from war. Oh, how wrong I was.

Charles never really wanted me to enlist and I enlisted because he didn't want me to. He needed a hand with the farm and he sent out my brother to be a man willingly whilst I was stuck at home, tending land that would never be mine.

But guess what? Albert, who scarcely made it out alive of the war, after initiating an ideal future comprising of beautiful children and a beautiful wife, died at the wheels of a tractor.

I took the nail from a broken down cultivator hidden in our run down shack. I had been as irresponsible as ever at the age of 10 when I decided to jump unto an isolated cultivator. The horses had seemed calm then but the calmness must have been provoked as soon as I jumped on. The horses raced as did my heart. The cultivator, being rusty had been isolated by Charles for a reason and I stupidly rode on the demeaning object. It came apart and I was dragged across a bed of loose nails. I gained a scar on my scalp, thigh and left leg for thus reason.

I took it because I was reminded that I had seen through a moment in my life where I had been dragged through a bed of pain but still managed to live: it gave me a sense of being unbreakable.  

I knew that in the hostile environment of war, I'd need as much confidence I could muster and so I took it with me. As an emblem of perseverance and home. 

A home where I wouldn't have to always cower from raining shells and ammunition. A home where I could envision a tomorrow with life. A home I would go to where war does not rage and spit fire but instead exudes warmth.

Unfortunately, I lost it in war and only have this ragged wallet to give to my parents.

You either make it or you don't.

I took that coin with me because Charles was right. In terms of this war anyway. You either make it or not. Before we akways went on those wracking missions, I always flipped the coin. I don't know why I feel the exact opposite of discouragement when I do it but I feel Father's presence lingering with a hand on my shoulder whenever I toss. I knew that I'd either make it or Charles would receive his stolen coin back.

-originally German war-volunteer Reinhold Spengler

***

We'd become so regularly affronted with the matter of death that we honed in on the comfort that it would happen anyway: to rid of anxiety and itching worries. Simple as that. I however did over-exaggerate the truth here. I would be lying if I said that I wasn't terrified despite this conclusion I had drawn to. War was scary no matter how you decide to succumb to it. There would always someone you'd miss if you died. Or the future you want to embark. I am a human being who tries to see the good side of things and it seemed as though in this situation, it were death. It had never been easy.