Have you ever heard the sound of a book hitting the wall? The sound is quite amazing, and this was no exception. The noise made the whole room shake, or it might have been her anger; which did that in particular thing.
       AN stood there looking at the book she had just tossed in the wall. A small feeling of regret was lurking in the back of her mind. Did the book really deserve such rough treatment? Right, it was awfully normal, a mainstream, crime-book. They all had to read it, her whole class had to read that freaking book. Couldn’t her teacher at least have found something fun for them to read, something special; something they couldn’t find by themselves?
      She was just so freaking tired of Vietnam, of the war, of any war, of reading about killings and fighting. Why was the world always the same?
      Aeronwy Nerissa, shortened to AN, which is Vietnamese for peace. That was her, a sixteen-year-old girl who had lived her whole thoughtful life on the Isles of Britain. But, and there was a big but; she was adopted, from Vietnam. Not that she had ever been there, or knew anyone who lived there, but that country had a special place in her mind. All the time… It always had, and would probably stay like this forever.
       She walked towards the book, picked it up and looked at it anxiously. Thank gods; it wasn’t hurt. But she might do something with that. No, she couldn’t. The book was not hers, not hers to harm, nor like. Why did her school buy such useless things?
        AN stood there, with a red book in her hands. Red like blood, coming from a living being. Golden letters spoke “An Aide from Vietnam” on crimson background. She had read in the foreword that the title had a double meaning, for those who wanted to find it.
      “Peace Aide from Vietnam”, she licked the words, tasted them silently. Quite a nice heading, if she hadn’t known what the book was about. Quite a nice heading, if you didn’t know for who it was made: an aide, who brought a sudden kind of peace to his mates.
     Killing, “assassing”, murdering, slaying they are all the same; words of taking lives. Of erasing a soul from the land of the living. Who had the right to do so? And who had the right to make entertainment of such an act?
       She looked down upon the words coloured in sunnish gold. Damn, she really didn’t want to read it trough. A couple of chapters were already done, and she knew she had to read the rest as well. Probably more people would get murdered, in awful ways. The descriptions were written with so much eye for detail, too much someone would say. Feeling the stomach twisting and turning up side down, while reading is not always the appreciated thing.
     Her fingers were shaking, she couldn’t keep them still. Suddenly the book began to fall, down towards the floor in slow motion. Centuries passed by, and the humanity was reborn once again, during the time it took for the novel to reach the ground. The noise did not make the walls tremble, nor was it her anger that made her do this, this time. A sudden weakness had hit her, the fact that she had to finish this piece of literature, no matter what. As if her teacher would let her skip, just because she had a thing against killing, violence, and “Nam”. A combination of those was enjoyed even less.
     What else is there, but life and death? AN was still just standing there, besides a novel covered in blood. She didn’t know why all this emotion had come. Though her consciousness whispered something about her land. The land she wanted to see, to visit. An “S” in the east of Asia,
        Once, when she still appreciated the child in her self, she had daydreams of going there. Finding her family, which was a family of course, not just a poor woman. In her fantasy she had brothers and sisters, and even grandparents. In real life she had neither.
         This novel wanted to ruin her romantic dream, but there were voices inside her head; which begged for it to stop. Though she knew all about the Vietnam War, she had her beliefs that things were and were to become better. She had her high hopes, which for some seemed too high. In the political colours of red, and red and black, her hopes were a bit optimistic. Today money rules the world.
         Still standing, but her feet felt like jelly. She stood there as a little girl, whose ideas of existing had just broken to peaces. Her world, her land, was not as enchanting as before. Sometime during the last minutes a part of her had grown up. Her loss of innocence had come for a day.
         Tears ran down her cheeks, they tasted salt like the ocean. She did not wonder why she was crying, all though she did not know. Her legs suddenly gave in, she fell down on the floor. Just lying there, beside the book, as a fallen warrior of the Great Wars.

        Huge thoughts flew through her head, stuff she had taken for granted. Great wonders of imagination, of her own dreams. One day she was going to travel Vietnam. See it all. She didn’t care what a stupid book said, or how horrid fiction could be. There are at least two realities, and she could choose which to live in. It was her life, her time, on this planet. And no one, not even her teacher, could take that away from her.  
        The Aide might be a killer, but still he had helped her to find peace.