The Small Paper

While reading the WWII diary of a British soldier—detailing his time hiding, escaping, and fighting Japanese forces in the Malayan jungles—a small piece of paper slipped from the pages into my hand. I kept it not as a relic, but as a fragment of endurance and lived history. Though plain and unassuming, it remains part of the original diary—yet to others, it could just as easily appear meaningless, even counterfeit. That ambiguity is intentional. The work is intentionally minimal. It offers no spectacle, no clear narrative—challenging assumptions about how war, memory, and trauma should be represented. Many overlook it, unsure what to make of its simplicity. But within that fragment lies a quiet weight: the presence of suffering, the trace of experience, and the unsettling truth that history often hides in plain sight—dismissed not for lack of substance, but for lack of display.