by the time you read this letter i ll be far away from here i ve left to find my fortune outside of the weir the world is not this island to dig and die for gold and how can i stay here with australia full of gold father won t forgive me so mother don t you cry for one day i ll return with my head held high for now keep that book its words pulled my bowstring and when i read them for me changed everything words on a page can weigh a ton when the past is not undone i stowed away on a ship that sailed the western sea city to the outback was all i d read it d be the war broke out in 41 i joined like every other son and came back from rabaul with my life and an empty gun when i came back to canada there were voices in my head they spoke not with words but with the faces of the dead the strongest river current can change its flow by force but words brought me to the war and changed my path and course now as an old man i think of all the things i ve done cause i ve lived my whole life like a bullet from a gun i look back at myself and when i was 21 and when i d read that book of foreign lands and all or none i wonder if my heirs will think of what i ve done and if the sins of the father will visit the son