A215 Big Red Book Activity 1.4

I wanted to share with you one of the freewriting prompts given on page 28 of the B.R.B and get some feedback on it. Here goes;

**I thought he would never change…In my eyes I thought he’d always be ‘the boy next door’ who grew up a true hero to me and his country. I guess he will always be a hero to the country. It wasn’t his uniform as a Gunner in the army that attracted me to him, I knew him before he signed his life away. We were both innocent and secretly holding a flame for each other. It was what they once told us that led us both to realise that change was inevitable. That saying; “Dreams can come true” had a lot to answer for. Our dreams did come true and it was good whilst it lasted. But war rampaged not only throughout his army career but through my tender and unprotected heart. They say that ‘war changes who you are as a person’ and for us that was certainly the case. It took me four years to realise that I loved a man who the Iraq war had killed and taken from me as ruthlessly as Cupid had given me. I like to think that he will never return to breathe life as he once did by my side. Not because I have no heart, rather the opposite, because my heart that once loved him, that part of him, that part of me, died alongside him as he fought in Iraq before he returned a changed man.
The person he is today is unrecognisable to me and he no longer stirs feelings in my heart. That person is long gone. Just life the person that once loved him with ever breathe in her body. Somewhere in the vast Universe that staged their love for one another, they are free like dust particles, dancing closely together like they once did at New Year before Iraq took root in their life to their funeral song, “I’ve had the time of my life”, like a music box that can be silenced and secret with a closing of the lid. Put away to gather dust and hoped to be forgotten about.  **

© Dawn Belewski, 2011