Paintings On My Wall

• Ophelia Doughty, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2014

I can just picture it now… the pure blue and clear water, the beautiful animals that standout like gold, the place itself is magnificent no words could ever explain how I felt, and then I realise that I was dreaming, dreaming of the paradise that I had always wanted to visit someday. I wake up moaning and uncertain of what had gone on. Life felt like so much less and then it hit me that I am only 12 and I have a life to live. I can’t just give up now.
My family had left me or instead they had been taken. We were separated when the soldiers with their weapons had come in, yelling at us to put our heads on the floor or else we would be shot. My father refused and begged them to let us go but they wouldn’t listen. Instead, the killers shot him in the chest and carelessly pushed him to the floor. The way they acted, I despised them, but I knew that if I had said anything I too would be in a worse situation than I was already in. We were then sent into camps, I have not met my brother, mother or father ever since. I can only hope that God will save us, all of us and we may meet each other again.
I know that someday I will awake in an unforeseen paradise where the people there will give us some sweet honey in exchange for the green grapes that hang on the vines outside our house, that here will be no more war, crime, poverty or greed for money; only the good and a beautiful serene environment on Earth.
The sergeant is here now, we have our food, one bowl of rice a day is all we get along with water. I regret now that I had taken everyday things for granted. Being able to shower was a privilege and I should have appreciated it. I wrote a will the other day, all that I have now is the four dull grey walls that surround me. My life had been one whole painters canvas but only half of it has been painted. What I have got to do now is to live my life and fill up the paintings and memories on my wall. One life that’s all what people believe that we have got. Whatever is my destiny I will fulfil it. Whether it means life or death I am sure that one pleasant day my dreams that had only been thought about, will be true, someday.