My Absent Comrades: Memoirs of Mahmoud Shirafkan

No sooner had I heard the blast that I smelled the blood. I could not see my surroundings. All I could see was crimson red. My body was heavy and I could not move it; I could not breathe as if my lungs were blown up. For each scream, a mass of blood rushed into my mouth. My hand slipped and went into a sluggish hole. I wondered as there was no holes there before, just a dry and rough land. I could feel the roots of plants in that sluggish hole. The moment I hardly opened my eyes and saw around myself, I screamed piercinglyI winced, aghast at what I sawthere was no holes, no rootsMy hand was inside the cut-into-half body of my brother-in-arms, Hossein. These events repeated for me in the wartime to the extent that I came to perceive what I was seeking. The truth I continuously searched for; years before setting foot on the battlefield. I realized there existed something which was worth it, something worthy of being torn up, something beyond the daily activities, what you can grant your life for.

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