I've just found an unread email I sent to myself last year, (i usually send myself links and writings if I'm on a college computer so i can read it later on)
Reading through i was quite drawn in by the story, then towards the end I realised I'd written it. I was quite amazed at how good my writing is. It was for an essay we were supposed to do in first year. I'm not sure if we ever needed to hand them in. This isn't finished, but I figured I would share it.
"The foundations of war.
June 14th 2010. You have been called up and sent to Afghanistan to serve on the front line. In 5 days from now you will have just got word about a sniper on the rooftops. It is a task your unit thinks you should handle. From afar, you find a relatively safe spot to scope him out. He's aware of your location and it's only a matter of time before someone fires. You and the enemy both have your fingers on the triggers, watching each other through the scopes from a distance. It's a hot day, the sun is beating down on you, droplets of sweat roll from under your helmet and down your face, but you are focused, statistically you are prepared for this. All your training has worked towards this moment.
You both fire, time slows down and everything goes black. Before you know it you are gazing up at the sky, gasping for air. A helicopter filled with paramedics are on their way to airlift you to safety. The heat, the pain and the pressure of the situation you survived is over. Though your mental and emotional war is just beginning.
Night time falls, you're laid up in bed worn out but wide awake. The flashbacks from the day won't leave you to rest. This is the first of many, many nights of restless sleep.
Some months pass and you are let go from service. Army officials think it's best for you to go home, as the night terrors have somewhat affected you mentally and you are now too unstable to work under the pressure. The next few years you try to settle into normal everyday things that life holds for most of us. Going to work, coming home to relax, then doing it all over again. But in the back of your mind is the sniper; who was he? What was his name? Where did he grow up? Did he have a family? All these questions which he cannot answer. The only thing he left you with is a scar. The last action that man ever did remains on your body. It tells nothing of who he was or where he was from. Only that for a brief moment in your divergent lives you both shared a connection of fear.
So why did you survive? Was it luck? Fate? Or just that he didn't have the better vantage point? You're going to spend your life asking these questions. Wondering while you took away a stranger's right to live, it is you who has the second chance at life.
Regardless of the date, this scenario has probably happened countless times over the past 80 thousand that years human civilisation has existed. Yet we still insist on such vicious attacks upon each other.
We all go through wars. It is just the foundations in which we fight which are different. To fight for peace, for land, for freedom or justice. Sometimes we're not fighting each other, but ourselves. To be shot down can mean with words, memories even illnesses.
In contrast to the story above, my name is Braden Miller. I am a 19 year old photography student of Wigan School for the Arts. I enjoy gaming, building model planes and of course, taking photographs. Like everyone in this world I care for many people and many people care for me. Be that as it may, I am missing out the one thing that makes me... me.
This would be my war. My war is a mental and emotional battle to find peace and happiness within myself. From a very young age I have always questioned "Why?". Why do I exist? What is the point to my life if it's just going to end anyway? Sadly 12 years on, I am still in this same situation. However as I have grown up, I have discovered that life doesn't get much better than the years I'm leaving behind. Therefore my vicious circle of thoughts continue to eat away at me.
Many will say that 'over-thinking' is dangerous, it leads to depressive thoughts. They wouldn't be wrong. Ever since i started wondering why I'm alive, my thirst to find something worthwhile is always questioned with 'why'.
I can only give one answer. This is that our natural instinct is to survive and reproduce. There is no philosophical reason behind it. That is just how nature works. It is only because we as a race have fabricated this unrealistic world in which we live, feeding the greedy superiors and obeying their rules and regulations, that we believe there is something more. Things such as the afterlife. Doing good things means you'll go to a lovely place and doing bad things means you'll be tortured for all eternity..."
to be continued!
