Cruel Miracles

Is my theme the instant? the theme of my life. I try to keep up with it. I divide thousands of times into as many times as the number of instants running by, fragmented as I am and the moments so fragile—my only vow is to life born with time and growing along with it: only in time itself is there room enough for me.

This war will indeed bring destruction upon human civilization. But this is a civilization which merits annihilation and destruction. There is no doubt that Hitlerian Nazism will ultimately be defeated, for in the end the civilized nations will rise up to defend the liberty which the German barbarians seek to steal from mankind. However, I doubt that we will live through this carnage. The bombs filled with lethal gas will poison every living being, or we will starve because there will be no means of livelihood.

we bought Flying Aces magazine at the newsstand we knew about Baron Manfred von Richtofen and Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker and we fought in dream trenches with our dream rifles and had dream bayonet fights with the dirty Hun . . . and those movies, full of drama and excitement, about good old World War One, where we almost got the Kaiser, we almost kidnapped him once, and in the end we finished off all those spike-helmeted bastards forever.