Salt to the Sea

I wept because i had no shoes, until i met a man who had no feet.

I became good at pretending. I became so good that after a while the lines blurred between my truth and fiction. And sometimes, when I did a really good job of pretending, I even fooled myself.

What had human beings become? Did war make us evil or just activate an evil already lurking within us?

I wanted to stay locked away from the pain and destruction. I didn't want to be strong. I didn't want to be the 'smart girl'. I was so very tired. I just wanted it all to be over.

Per aspera ad astra, Papa,' I whispered. Through hardship to the stars.

War is catastrophe. It breaks families in irretrievable pieces. But those who are gone are not necessarily lost.

Guilt is a hunter. Fate is a hunter. Shame is a hunter. Fear is a hunter.

How foolish to believe we are more powerful than the sea or the sky.

Your daughter, your sister. She is salt to the sea,

Just when you think this war has taken everything you loved, you meet someone and realize that somehow you still have more to give.

War had bled color from everything, leaving nothing but a storm of gray.

Yet amidst all that, life has spit in the eye of death.

His smugness was annoying. This was the type of man who looked at a picture on the wall and instead of admiring the photo, looked at his own reflection in the glass.

You love stories, Emilia. Well, the trees hold hundreds of years of stories. Think of it, everything these trees have seen and felt. All of the secrets are inside of them.

Enough studying, Joana. Sometimes living life is more instructive than studying it.

What determines how we remember history and which elements are preserved and penetrate the collective consciousness? If historical novels stir your interest, pursue the facts, history, memories, and personal testimonies available. These are the shoulders that historical fiction sits upon. When the survivors are gone we must not let the truth disappear with them. Please, give them a voice.

The old man spoke of nothing but shoes. He spoke of them with such love and emotion that a woman in our group had crowned him “the shoe poet.” The woman disappeared a day later but the nickname survived. “The shoes always tell the story,” said the shoe poet. “Not always,” I countered. “Yes, always. Your boots, they are expensive, well made. That tells me that you come from a wealthy family. But the style is one made for an older woman. That tells me they probably belonged to your mother. A mother sacrificed her boots for her daughter. That tells me you are loved, my dear. And your mother is not here, so that tells me that you are sad, my dear. The shoes tell the story.” I paused in the center of the frozen road and watched the stubby old cobbler shuffle ahead of me. The shoe poet was right. Mother had sacrificed for me.

I knew the legends of the birds. Seagulls were the souls of dead soldiers. Owls were the souls of women. Doves were the recently departed souls of unmarried girls. Was there a bird for the souls of people like me?

What did I want? I wanted the war to be over so I could ask her out.

The shoes always tell the story,' said the shoe poet. 'Not always,' I countered. 'Yes, always. Your boots, they are expensive, well made. That tells me that you come from a wealthy family. But the style is one made for and older woman. That tell me they probably belong to your mother. A mother sacrificed her boots for her daughter. That tells me you are loved, my dear. And your mother is not here, so that tells me that you are sad, my dear. The shoes tell the story.

My war had been so long, my winter so cold. But i had made it home. And for the first time in a long time, i was not afraid.

He wanted to know something about me. I leaned over and put my mouth to his ear. It was barely a whisper. 'I'm a murderer.

The books, raped and rummaged of their dignity, lay in heaps on the floor.