Letter to the Later Generation

Letter to the Later Generation

This letter is intended for all of you children who are now being rocked to sleep. For those of you who will soon fall into a world where bombs, screams, and the sound of war are nowhere to be heard. The ticks of my clock have been replaced with the explosive ticks of guns. But here I am, hopeless and distressed. Closed shut into the bleakness of reality, longing for the return of the love of my life. The time that passes only makes me loose more faith. To come to think that the blood I smell came from him shouldn’t even cross my mind. But how can I just rest here, lying to myself, as if to think that he will one day come? In this world that we live in, we are filled with nothing more than the hate for the race of mankind. To those in the seat of absolute power, they seem to not care for the loss of so many innocent souls. I cry in despair that maybe this war can someday come to end. The sunrise and sunset are no longer visible through these clouds of black smoke that infest this city. The beautiful buildings that once adorned this capital are nothing more than crumbles and pieces of worthless cement. Something that meant so much before has no importance now. The only thing that one is concerned about is for the safety of one’s own life. To think about what will be tomorrow’s meal that is if there even is one. Supplies are so short that at times I wonder if I will one day die of hunger. Will I survive this disastrous war? Will I be able to live without the love of my life? Will I live to have children? It’s tragic to see things this way, but it’s even more devastating to realize that this is my reality. Being a woman of course, I have no opinion or say as to what I believe to be just and right. I am a twenty one year old woman living in Paris trying to figure out what will be of my life, and nothing more. To this male dominant society it is the “obligation” of the female nature to be a part of this war by working and staying home to care for the families. How dare a woman step into the shoes of a soldier, a warrior, being so fragile and vulnerable that is? The men shrivel at the thought that a woman step into fields of war. Yet, are not the nurses in the fields facing the same dangers as them? Why then can women not enlist? This notion of female inferiority has yet to sink into my brain. I don’t know if it is my stubbornness that does not allow it so, or perhaps, my better understanding of things. Now that the men are off to war, the women are given better job opportunities by replacing the men. That’s one positive outcome of this war. Maybe this will give the female race an opportunity to show the dominant male society that we are not as weak as they may regard us to be. It will show this culture that is engulfed with ignorance that the female and male races are of equivalence both in bronze and brains; that we can both accomplish and perform the same tasks that we involve ourselves in. Of course this is nothing more than another radical thought of my female brain. It is obvious that women are only needed for the time being. Once the males return, we go back to the way it used to be. For now, we have no choice but to listen to the sounds of war, the cries of misery and despair, the continuous gunshots in the battlefields, and the crumbling of precious buildings. The colors of the world have been washed away by the only two remaining colors that I now see: the grayness of the sky and the redness of the soldiers’ blood. Hopefully the later generations won’t go through as many hardships as us. There will be one day when the problems of nations could be solved with agreements and not with the unnecessary superfluous amount of human souls. These vast sites of destruction and catastrophe will eventually see the light of day. When all the smoke is gone and the land is clear of rotting blood, the children of the later generation shall prevail.