Retired from Canada’s JTF 2, I now work on writing and film photography.
“Their dying wish was to begin again.”
— J.R. Watson
Afghan Sky
Next to the Arghandab river in the corner of a dirt field under a large leafy tree, a young Taliban fighter sits alone in a small hole. The mud around his feet is dry and cracked, above him the long branches sway in the night’s breeze. He’s walked seven hundred mountain kilometres to be where he is now… (READ MORE)
“The less I know the better.
I lost my love. Tired of my failures, she left me alone on some rocks.
She’s gone in search of something better.
Now alone I wonder with whom she walks.
But, the less I know the better.”
J.R. Watson
Mr. Potter was elderly with thinning grey hair, scratched spectacles, and an obtuse round head that didn’t quite match his thin body. Mr. Potter screamed like a woman when they started to cut. Laughter and hollering bellowed out from his torturers. The sound was only a dozen or so yards on the other side of the canvas from me. I could hear grunts and clangs from their war-equipment as the Indians struggled to scalp Mr. Potter. The sound of his scalp tearing free was loud but not loud enough to cover the retched screams and watery cries coming from Potter himself.
Every man within earshot of something like this feels the same: a lightning strike into the chest. Dread that washes up and down the body, your stomach wants to empty, your fingers and limbs feel lighter, less real, less available for pain. Usually you freeze. And hearing Mr. Potter scream as his scalp and hair was removed sank me into a cold and terrifying pit. No sooner did I fall into that pit of terror did my new life begin— and it began abruptly.
EXCERPT FROM 12th ARROW
“The first quality of love should be that it is indiscriminate. Look at a tree, watch as it provides its shade even to those who work to drop it to the forest floor.
Secondly, it should not ask for anything in return. It’s not love if you only give it to those who make you feel special.”
J.R. Watson