Soldiers Go Home

 

And all the babies lie in bits across the rubble. Hate seems the only drug that can numb the suffering. Everyone's mind is clogged with an acidic sludge administered to poison the worm-crawling cancer called fear inside their chests. And all outer complexity - the intimate structures of work and birth, the forces of nature - explode.

 

And then one young human man - he is twenty years old - stops pulling the trigger. Stops obeying orders. He turns his back and begins walking home, knowing well that the way is perilous and the distance far. 

​

The others see. 

 

And then, at once, as one, they stop, they do not obey, and they turn.

 

And silence soon descends. 

 

Smoke dissipates. 

 

Light pierces. 

 

The order givers are alone.

 

The others are together.

 

The wound of hate is stoppered. 

 

There is no rejoicing.

 

Healing can begin.