I JUST WANTED TO LIVE

I just wanted to live. It is reasonable for a child to think about living. I didn’t ask as much. My dreams were not of glory, I didn’t want to become a football player, an astronaut or an Hollywood actor, no, nothing like that. I just wanted a decent life. A life like many perhaps, but a life anyway. It’s not because I had no dreams, they were just resized. My eyes were big and blacks, and I always kept a handful of pebbles in my pocket. Where I come from no one had toys, so, with the pebbles, we had fun creating geometric shapes or inventing fantastic stories. We were a bunch of kids and we played in the street, as long as we could, until it became dangerous. Then, I had to learn to play alone, when we started to hide. My brothers were too young and couldn’t talk with them. I must say that’s not too bad to play alone, you can invent things that you would never have thought about. Like stories of children who can finally return to play games in the streets, because the war is over.  It’s because of the war if I am dead. It destroyed my city, my home and the street where we were playing. It took my friends and then me too. The weird thing is that I died on the brink of salvation. Isn’t it weird? You manage to escape the bombs and then pass  away because of the sea. The sea that you should cradle, and instead wipes out all your dreams of a better life, a normal life. Believe me, it is good to die in the ocean. My life was flashing before me in those minutes. I thought of Mom, Dad and my brothers. They are gone as well, except my father. He held on, he survived. And I have only one prayer for him: may he find a country to finally live in peace. Don’t be afraid of him, he’s a good man, and he was also a good dad. He is not different from you, he is a citizen of the world. Remember that the land in which we walk belongs to everyone, and that geographical boundaries are only illusions.

And one last favor: don’t tell him to go home. He doesn’t have a home anymore. But if you want, help us to stop this war, help us to rebuild our homes, help us to find peace. That peace that lived in all of us before we got into this absurd situation. Only then, if you don’t look the other way, I wouldn’t died in vain.

This story of pure fiction is dedicated to all war victims, of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Cover image Robert Capa via classic-photographers.com