Memories & Prospects
It's a long bumpy ride home in the trailer. The war has ended, finally. I had been in the front line for 2 days. People will always say I'm lucky and a hero. When I get home, all the town will respect me because I have been through absolute hell. It doesn't appeal to me as much as you would have thought. It will churn up old memories every time someone asks me about the war or says well done.Tomorrow I will arrive at my house, 1 Meadow Lane and go inside and greet my waiting wife and two children. I will return to my old job as an accountant and my life will be back to it's cosy, routine form. I will come into the office and my co-workers will be saying, "Welcome back", and my life will be normal again, it will not have the impending thought that the next shell could have my name on it, or that tomorrow I may go over the top, but thoughts like, "I wonder what's for supper?" and, "where did I leave my newspaper?" it is such a pleasant contrast. As we were driving along we hit a dip in the road, the whole thing shuddered and we almost fell over. It was like a shell landing behind our trench like it did last week. Oh! Last week. I woke up at 5:15am to take my sentry post. I walked to the post knee deep in muddy sludge with chun
e satisfyingly tasty food, not just ration meat which is bland and unidentifiable, but roast chicken with all the extras. I was longing to be clean and warm and dry. No rats, no bombs, just a normal routine life. I was one of the lucky survivors. Some peoples nerves were shot to pieces and some peoples feet had just started rotting away! I saw John Redstone get it in the head. A sniper got it straight through his tin hat, fat lot of good they do. Came out the back of his head it did. The thing that I will never forget is seeing his face when it happened, the brief grasp of the situation before he died, his last thought along the lines of, "So, this is how it ends." He got it two days before the end of the war. Must have been hard on the family, they would have heard about the end of the war before they heard about his death. Such a pity. As we load up onto the boat, I think about how nice it will be to get home, never have to worry about war again, my only enemy being my memories. I will never forget any of this god forsaken war or watching men die and dieing. I will settle down in front of a nice warm fire with a glass of neat vintage scotch whiskey and listen to the wireless. After these thoughts, a tear wells up in my eye and falls to the dusty floor of the
Some common words found in the essay are:
Meadow Lane, Redstone's Poor, John Redstone, People I'm, , depressed drink,
Approximate Word count = 856
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
