I found him a boy of my own age sitting against a tree in my father’s orchard

At first I thought that he was asleep but a bullet wound just under his left ear confirmed to me that he was dead

His hands were still warm although the sweat on his brow was sticky and cold

I sat with him for a while so that he might have a companion on his long journey into eternity

Tears of death had formed under his dark drooping eyelashes

I waited for them to drop but they remained frozen in time

As they sun reached its highest point I thought I heard voices in the orchard and faded into the early afternoon without a sound

I left the boy soldier quite alone against my tree reliving the horrors of his earlier war