Paradise Road-Encountering Conflict

970 Words4 Pages
When conflict arises, it is impossible not to take a side, everyone has a role.” “I was left alone with a group of young women, speaking in a different tongue. When the colonel arrived, the room went dead silent; they all bowed their head straight away, as obedient as a herd of sheep. It’s impossible to ignore the fear in their eyes. I was horrified when I saw a horrible wound across one of the women’s face. It was still bleeding, blood dripping down her cheek. As a nurse, my first instinct was to help the poor women, but a punch in the back stopped me dead on track. I fell on to the hard, dirty stone floor, covered in animal feces, tumbling in pain. That was the moment I realized I have arrived in hell, the pain and the nightmare will haunt me forever. “ That was a paragraph from my book, “white coolies”. I was a prisoner of war in World War Two, captured by the Japanese Army and held in a camp for 3 years. As a nurse, I was responsible for the treatment of patients with in the camp. Diseases such as malaria, beriberi, Bangka fever were common, many died due to the lack of food and medication. Some events were so horrific that I would never mention them again. However, there was one story that left a mark in my memory, the one that taught me a lesson and the one I would never forget. One day, a Japanese soldier came in, alone with the translator. I bowed to them immediately, fearing that they might take another one of my sisters away. They pointed at me and called me outside. I could not help but to glance back at the others, their eyes filled with dread. To my surprise, they bought me to the Sergeant Tomiashi, known to us as “the snake”. He’s shivering and sweating, a sign of Malaria. The translator told me to treat him. I stared at him blankly, as if I didn’t understood what he just said. The image of a body on fire flashed though my mind, the scream,

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