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Every now and then we would hear the far off rumble of thundering cannons, or the scurry of feet in the corridors, and our eyes would follow the noise across the walls in the hope that it would reach the door.

It had been a few months since I had been captured, but you can only imagine how slowly time passes when your existence is confined to a single room. Even with the company of four other men, time would stretch on for as long as it could. Personally I was glad of it. Every day which passed was another day I had lost, and I had no desire to measure what the war had cost me, no matter how much of my life that was.

At first I slept very little, my father’s watch would keep me awake most nights; a small silver watch, not particularly extravagant, or even well kept, but still a beautiful sight when the light would dance in the various scratches which covered it. Watches of this sort were not hard to come by, it was unique though to any other watch I had previously owned in that its ticking was by far louder than any other, as was the reason it kept me awake, rapping my ears as I lay my head upon my hands. I had no particular urge to sleep anyway, one of my few remaining pleasures was to reminisce; the night was the best time to do this, and the watch helped to reminded me. This pleasure, however, was short lived, as the ticks were thrown across the room, and the others did not appreciate the reminiscent qualities that I found in them. The watch is now in my pocket, muffled by the weathered fabric of my trousers. I now sleep easily, not like a baby, but close. I don’t dream as vividly as I did with the watch, but that seemed a small price, dreams were just flashes of thought which evaporated when I woke. After being there for a week my dreams mostly consisted of some manner of escape, but they only lasted until the morning. When I stopped wearing the watch these dreams stopped completely. Nevertheless, it was not the dreams which I missed, just the ticking. I was denying myself the only thing that I had left, and only because I was the only one who wanted to hear it. I would hate to think what my father would say if he found out. I don’t even know when it stopped; one night when everyone else had drifted into sleep I took it out and it was silent, it had adopted the silence of the cell, and I didn’t notice. I lay the watch in my hand, still with all its beauty sparkling through it, and it was silent.