First installment

The next day was Christmas Day, it passed quiet but not quiet, it was the same as any other Christmas, we talked not about anything important just chitchat, ate dinner, watched tv, it was as if nothing had happened. The day slowly ended and I was exhausted not from doing something but just simply tired, weather tomorrow will be the same I wondered but that night I slept like a baby, today had gone but tomorrow was Boxing Day another time for the family all together, all these rituals, always the same but somehow this year was different.

Well today was Boxing Day I woke up waiting to hear something outside but nothing, no explosions, no gun fire, nothing as if I had woken up in a different world, it was but not world, country so I decided to make the most of the little time that I had left with my family, not drinking too much and trying to avoid any questions about Croatia. As was the tradition everyone came over for dinner, everyone having a great time as was usual, my brothers, sister and husband and their children, all enjoying the day, the only difference was that I knew that they were all thinking about me going back but nothing was said. The last two months I had been in Croatia fought and tried to save a village, falsely reported dead and I had learned how completely inadequate the Croatian army really was, a lot had happened and I had found out a lot about myself, all in a short space of time. During that afternoon everyone avoided asking questions about what had happened, we looked at all the sympathy cards that had been sent to my family. This was rather an uncanny situation, here I was looking and reading messages written to my parents after I was dead but I was obviously alive, the press had a lot to answer for, they were the real criminals not just because of what happened to me but in all wars. The days went by slowly and uneventfully, the only difference was that I was packing any military information that might be useful to the men back in Briest, anything that could be used to help them become soldiers was bound to make a difference to whether they stayed alive for the rest of the war. The day of departure came around, saying my goodbyes hugging and kissing my mother, got into the car and we drove off with me looking back and waving until we were out of sight, I was on my way.

We reached Newport where my father parked the car and came with me to the bus stop, I went to buy some newspapers to read and get updated on the situation in Croatia and returned to where my father was sitting and waited hardly saying a word to each other. The bus arrived, I said goodbye to my father and got on, there were no tears between us, my father knew that this was wanted to do and that he would not be able to stop me,the bus pulled out of the station and I glanced back at my father as he was walking back to the car and wondered when I would see him or my mother again. The possibilities were endless but I hoped that I would be lucky enough to stay alive long enough to go home again, but I was going back to a war so there was no way to see the future, the only thing I had was hope.