Note to self: Speed is not survival. Timing is survival.” “I stole bread today. From an old woman’s cellar. She wasn’t there—maybe dead, maybe fled. I left three cans of beans in exchange, but that’s not the point. The point is: I have become someone who takes.
Tonight we are eating real rice. Someone found a sack in a collapsed warehouse. I am crying again. But this time it’s different.” “The war isn’t over. But the Blocs are retreating. I saw their columns pulling back this morning. Lin climbed a water tower and waved a red scarf. No one shot at her. a record of delia's war
Before the war, I returned library books a day late and felt guilt for a week. Now I’ve taken a life—not directly, but I helped Lin drag a wounded Bloc deserter into a sewer. He died there. Infection. I held his hand. He said his mother’s name. ‘Maria.’ Note to self: Speed is not survival
I started this record to survive. Now I think I finish it to remember. Not just the horror—but the fact that a librarian and a fourteen-year-old girl with a spoon outlasted an army. She wasn’t there—maybe dead, maybe fled
I have written 847 pages. Some are soaked in rain. Some in blood. One in coffee—that was an accident.
I will put this ledger in a metal box. I will bury it under the oak tree behind the ruined library. Maybe someone digs it up. Maybe no one does.
