In a tiny German town where my grandmother and her family lived was a young boy whom my grandmother and some of her friends would tease now and again. He would always carry around a little rustic-red journal and he loved to write in it from time to time. The girls one day took the poor boy’s little journal from him and played keep away with it. The poor over-weight boy could not keep up with the girls and pleaded frantically for them to give him back his precious rustic-red journal. One of the girls cultivated a despotic grin on her face as she plotted her next move. The young girl ran to the bathroom, into the stall and threw the boy’s rustic-red journal into the toilet (my grandmother never forgave herself for allowing that girl to do that). The girls sat outside the stall giggling as the poor chubby boy reached down into the toilet to retrieve his beloved journal. He loved that journal as if it were his best friend. The next day day a Nazi Invasion took the small town by storm. The school teacher yelled for the children to run home as fast as they could, sending thirty or so young panicking children spilling out of the classroom. As the children ran, the sound of gunfire rang through the town. Grenades and bullets flew through the air. People being gunned down left and right as the grim scene continued to unfold. One soldier, a young boy not fit for war, pulled the pin of a grenade and sent it hurdling through the air. The deadly hand grenade flew past my grandmother, clipping her ear as she ran. The grenade kept tumbling toward the young boy with the rustic-red journal as he ran for his life. The young boy was unfortunately too slow. The grenade plopped down at his feet with a metallic “tink-tink”, and without the slightest delay, a burst of shrapnel exploded, sending a pink mist into the air and the rustic-red journal flying. My grandmother could recall, as a young child, watching that rustic-red journal fly out of the poor boy’s hands. She said that it seemed like time stood still as she watched that journal soar through the air and sink deep into the mud, never to be seen again.