Letters of Billy

Pilgrim

The Third Letter

‘…People grow up to learn that time is determined by the sun and measured by the light. They

cannot put time in a different container; they cannot give it another shape or even another

colour. To understand time, we need to revise our understanding of the world and create a new

language that helps giving time its exact lexical field.

After spending a quality of time with the Tralfamadorians trying to learn from them, I found

that Time is a long tape whose start and end are determined from the beginning of the

Universe. Each individual is placed is a specific part of that long tape of time. Some are placed

lonely and others are placed together. Those individuals who are selected to be together in the

same house are one family. Those who are grouped in the same place are neighbours and citizens

of the same towns.

Some people live their determined fate. They experience the slow flow of time during their hard

days, and experience the fast flow of time during their happy days. Other people experience time

like waves; they keep going up and down, up and down until their lives are gone. They get older

and they no longer survive.

The happy people are those ones who understand the flow of time. Every time they face hard

days, they know that in other time they face happy days. Those live their lives happy, sane and

satisfied. The sad people are those ones who refuse to accept their time. They miss the past and

they wait for the future endlessly. They forget their present in life which is the present...’

Sincerely

Billy Pilgrim

The Fourth Letter:

‘…I was taken to the military service with the infantry in Europe, and then I went on trip to

Dresden to fight as many other random people did. My trip was not amusing as I thought it

would be. It was plain. There is nothing worth telling about it. There weren’t nice places to

wander in, no fresh rivers to contemplate. All towns looked the same; they were all sterile like

the surface of the moon.

While wandering around the frozen rivers and the snowing mountains, I saw many dogs which

were borrowed from the farms to join their farmers and help them find the human enemies. I

met the angels who are taken from heaven, given guns and military suits and transformed into

killing machines. I met the honourable figures of the war and saw their heroic job in planning

to kill the human enemies. I met the silence and tried to talk to him, but there were no amusing

stories worth telling about the war apart from its benefits. Silence became my friend whom

with I shared many interesting discussions about the war. I kept asking him what made dogs so

cruel? What made the angels so sinful? And what made killing machines so honourable? But

there was no sane answer apart from echoes that arrive with the cold wind from the mountains.

Once we talked about how the war becomes a part of the human blood; it becomes necessary for

their survival. The war gave birth to many jobs; what would millions of people do when there is

no war? How many unemployed people there will suffer? How many empty mountains there

will be?

War offers unemployed people the opportunity to become heroic figures in the army and great

fighters in people’s eyes. My son was one of those honourable Sergeants who fought in Vietnam

and did a fantastic job by killing our enemies from the human species. War created goodness,

equality and patience. Prisoners of war have become better human beings. They became friendly

and caring. There were a lot of prisoners with me who waited patiently for the sunrise to warm

up, who accepted to sleep together and to eat together. They shared food and exchanged bread.

They slept together as children and shared one dream: freedom. Their fate was determined. They

all knew they will die. The harsh truth makes them stronger and equal no matter where they

will go later, heaven or hell. Equality made fairness and love true.

Knowing how beneficial the war was makes me expect the World War Three at any time.

Living in peace will make many lives boring and meaningless. All those people believed that the

war was their fate. All those soldiers who fought in Vietnam and in Dresden knew that they

had to keep on fighting until the war is gone away. They accepted their fate and believed as I

believed that three things cannot be changed: the past, the present and the future. Who

determined our fate to fight? That was the question that even the silence couldn’t answer…’

Yours Faithfully

Billy Pilgrim