Not Brave Enough To Be Indifferent

"Perhaps some of us are better at hiding our fear. But my mother never claims to be brave enough to remain indifferent. No Hollywood lightening expert could capture the paleness of my mother's face, the quivering of her colourless lips when she hears the rocket fire. She says her heart gets weaker with each explosion, each death and each funeral.... Of course, the war was always real to us, but until now the battles were in the countryside and in other cities. Before this, we used to hear news of the fighting; now we see its victims, bloodied, burned, broken and dead. For years we lived a fantasy of war, but now it invaded our lives. On the streets, inside our buses - even in classrooms - people get into arguments and fistfights quickly. We were loosing our collective nerve. The war has come to our homes. "

(Nelofer Pazira. "A Bed of Red Flowers. In Search Of My Afghanistan" pg,12)