Road to the Future

Safi Ullah Usman, Pakistan

A despondent letter found among the ruins of a military bunker. 

Mama. 

I am afraid. 

I am writing this letter from my bunker; we’ve been stuck in here for weeks now. I do not know how I will get this to you, but I will find a way.  

I killed a man, about a month ago. He looked innocent enough to me, but Sergeant said he could have been a spy. We buried him in the mud later that night. I couldn’t help but wonder if he had any family. 

They would never get to visit this dismal place that we had made his grave.  

I am afraid, Mama.  

I remember I had a strange dream once. The sort that you never really forget; the sort that you catch yourself thinking about at the most random moment. There was a road, muddy and narrow and barren, a poor sight all in all. And that stench. Oh! That awful stench. I couldn’t stand it, and so I began to walk, a part of me hoping that the intolerable miasma of mud would abate.   

And so it was; the road beneath me became less and less sticky. Dry patches of grass here and there, the smell now only a ghost of its former self. I was pacing now. Some part of me knew that it was only going to get better.  

I saw trees towering above, the grass greener now than ever. I saw children, chasing each other with the purest of smiles lighting up their faces. I considered joining in their sport, but I was enticed by this road that I was on, and I just had to see it to the very end.  

There were people everywhere now, as far as the eye could see and farther. Lovers held hands, children played with unconcealed glee, others walked their pets. Not a frown to be seen.  

I thought I had seen it all, but no. I came upon a gate, so huge that I felt small and insignificant in front of it. I walked towards it, drawn to it like a moth is to a flame. Suddenly, the gates began to open in majestic fashion, as if this was God’s own castle. A warm, welcoming glow overcame me, bathing me in an inexplicable ecstasy. I felt attracted to it; I had only just tasted its sweet honey, yet I was already addicted. I walked into it, feeling so light that I might as well have been floating.  

That was when I woke up.  

I told Papa about it the next morning over breakfast. You were bed-ridden with that awful pneumonia. 

He heard my magical tale patiently over tea, and then pulled me closer. I might never forget his words: 

“Every dream is only another reality.” 

They came for him the next day; the men in the outfits. Enlisted for the war. I remember your screams as they dragged him away to his death, and how I stood frozen at the doorway.  

I am afraid, Mama. Afraid that I will never truly journey to the end of that road. That I too will die in the mud, under an indifferent sky. I believed in my fathers words for the longest time, but I do not think I may ever see a world without war. I am afraid that I will die before humanity learns to smile again, to hold hands, to laugh and to play and to be human again. Sometimes I feel as if death would be a cruel kindness.  

I hope this letter finds you well, Mama. I hope you live to be a hundred, that you get to see the sun rise on a peaceful world, I hope you get to hear the birds chirping and see the neighbours daughters play hop-scotch on the street. I hope life treats you as well as you deserve.  

Love you forever and ever,  

John.  

Safi Ullah Usman is a student of Electrical Engineering at NUST. He prefers to write figuratively, so that his stories always have deep themes and is trying to be more active as a writer nowadays.