The Victorious Commander
A Jam of Jar - The Victorious Commander
Can you tell me one of your memories of war?”, I asked him. “War changes you a lot, you got see yourself ”, he said. “How?”, I asked. I wanted to make him tell me. He had just returned from the frontline. “People change a lot in there”, he said while nodding. He paused for a second, so I waited. Then he explained: I was eating launch with my commander. In the frontline, most of the time we eat two by two in big pots. That day we had Abgoosht1 , there were three meat parts for the two of us. I had learned to eat first so that I would get the last part. He couldn’t eat two meat parts even though he was a commander. I was busy eating that I didn’t recognize whether there was a sound or not, but I just saw him turning his head towards the rifle-pit saying, “I’ll be there”. He went there. The golden opportunity arrived to eat the second meat. I did so and waited for his return. He didn’t come back. I went out of the rifle-pit searching for him. What I saw was very strange. The commander was washing the dishes near the water tank. I got near and told him, “Sir, your food got cold”. He didn’t look up and just told me that his cut was mine because he was busy. Sometimes, it happens to you that you feel like parts of your body are frozen. All my mouth was frozen. Everything I had eaten was frozen. I looked at myself head to toe, then looked at his sun-burnt face. I just remembered nobody had called him in the first place. The commander was the victor. And I had lost; I had lost so badly.
