true friends cannot be forgotten ever

by Eduardo Galeano

The Uruguayan dictatorship had the Majfud family cornered. They suffered prison and torture and humiliations, and were dispossessed of everything they had.

One morning the children were playing in an old cart when a gunshot rang out. They were some distance away, but the sound traveled across the fields of Tacuarembó and they knew, who knows how or why, that the report came from the bed of their most beloved aunt, Marta.

Ever since that morning, Nolo, the youngest in the family, has wondered out loud: “Why be born, if we have to die?”

Jorge, his older brother, tries to help him.

He searches for an answer.

The years flow on, the way trees slides past the windows of a train, and Jorge is still searching for the answer.

From Hunter of Stories, by Eduardo Galeano.