The man sitting across from me asks, “Did you know there was a war?” I say that I do and we speak for a short while. Then I turn to look at those people who, like us, are spending the afternoon in one of the square’s many cafés. And that’s when I see him. He appears out of nowhere, walking as though he’s got an enormous, invisible weight bearing down on his shoulders. He’s dragging a rifle and when I look at his feet, I realize he’s not wearing any shoes. He’s a soldier and his face is covered in dust and blood. I can’t stop staring as he limps along. I’m scared he might fall. He’s moving closer and closer to our table and when he arrives, he stops. As soon as he opens his mouth, the square empties. Only the two of us remain, facing each other. He speaks in a language I don’t know but am inexplicably able to understand. He tells me, “A few minutes ago two of my mates died right in front of me. I’m sure I died afterwards too, but I can’t remember. I’ve seen so many things, so many unimaginable things. Since all this started, I haven’t been able to sleep for more than three hours at a time. The sound of bombs exploding keeps ringing in my head. You’ve got to be careful because they go off everywhere. I didn’t want to go at first, but those men in the thirty-second ads on T.V. convinced me. When I told my wife, she cried. My mom cried, too. And they both assured me that, in the end, if I did decide to go, they wouldn’t be there to see me off.
I left on my own one day at six in the morning. I made friends right away and for a few weeks it felt like one big adventure. Then we reached the woods and uncertainty filled the air. That’s when the dying started. We’d wake up in the morning and look at each other, wondering who was next. Sometimes everything was covered in ash and the smell of death would cut through my breath. I couldn’t put that smell into words even if I tried. When everything got to be too much, I thought about her, my wife who never wrote. I often closed my eyes just so I could see hers.
I wanted to escape so many times, but I always feared that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to go home. I started to live my life feeding the only hope that gave me the strength to bear the cold and my mates disappearing one by one. I wanted to believe that it was a matter of time. We’d surrender soon or the others would, and I could go back to sitting in this square like you are now. It’s bleak when what you hope for never materializes. For a few weeks now nobody has spoken. It’s as though we’re all scared of saying what we’re thinking out loud. We’re tired and there’s a certain emptiness in our eyes. We’re machines trudging through a night that never changes. We eat little, we try to sleep, and we shoot if we think the enemy’s in front of us. Today could have been like that too, but there’s a rumor going round that we’ve lost and the others won’t be cruel.
We’ve just hurried down a deserted highway, entertained by possibilities we couldn’t allow ourselves to think about yesterday. And that’s when the shots started, far off at first and then closer and closer. I heard people crying out and watched as the blood from mutilated bodies stained the road red. When the two guys in front of me fell, I knew I would too. I’m twenty-five years old and I won’t be able to see my wife again. I’ll never have the chance to tell her that I shouldn’t have listened to those ads. I won’t have children and when I walk through this square, nobody will see me because you’ll be off in another city with your friends. Then, he walks off, limping in the same way he did when I saw him arrive, and the square slowly starts to fill with people. My friends carry on talking without noticing my silence, and when one of them looks in my direction, I smile, trying to hide how I feel like crying over the death of a man I never knew.