Tag: war

The Blood

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Hallways of history’s horrors, collected to remind future generations of the evils of the past.
Never again, we all say.
Gunfire!
Get down. Now.
Get behind something.
We see two men, guns drawn.
A guard. And a madman.
Both fired.
Each man falls to the floor, blood flowing from where they’d shot each other.
A madman with a lifetime of hate, his blood slowly mixing with the guard’s blood who had stopped him at the cost of his own life.
He sees the dead stare, and then their blood together.
Black. White.
If only this were the last to spill.

Battle

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Thop, Demon Storm of Arrows, watched his followers gather at the Canyon Fortress of Mists and grinned.
“Tonight, they will celebrate your doom,” he said to Shishksnikt, who was smiling at his own forces.
His Twenty Fists made their way along the rockfaces, sword on their backs.
“Warriors fight, warriors die,” he responded. “Your cowards and their toys are no match for steel.”
Behind them both, The Grim Reaper sharpened his blade and nodded. “I guess I’ll have to cancel my dinner plans!” he trilled. “Souffle tomorrow night, boys?”
Thop and Shishksnikt sighed. Next time they’d just flip a coin.

Liberated

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We were liberated by the British.
The Americans, they bring doctors. They bring food. They bring water. They bring medicine. They bring trucks and jeeps. They talk and they cry.
The British, they bring nothing. Not even clothes.
I ask one for food, and he turn his back on me. He get into his jeep and drive off with other soldiers.
I cannot eat freedom. I cannot wrap myself in freedom.
We wander in the street, the forest.
We do not know where to go or what to do.
It starts to rain, and we open our mouths to drink.

The Night Of A Thousand Stars

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“Make a wish, Daddy.”
A tiny finger points to the night sky, silver streaks crisscrossing over each other.
“Those aren’t shooting stars,” I said.
No, they were satellites.
And it was my fault.
After the Russians hit one of ours, we agreed to hand over orbits and frequencies to each other.
I wrote the database.
Everything worked beautifully in the tests.
But the moment the tracker went online, every satellite with propulsion went into controlled deorbit. The rest shut down or exploded.
My daughter pinched me. “Make a wish.”
So, I did.
I wish I had checked my code again.

Invulnerable

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Lord Bragdor’s armor stands in the Hall Of Heroes, as shiny as the day he was speared through the face in a jousting tournament.
“It was enchanted with an invulnerability spell,” said the Hall’s custodian, The Blue Wizard. “But, his visor was loose and his opponent very lucky.”
“Wouldn’t the lance have been knocked aside by the spell?” asked his apprentice Morstrawl.
“If the invulnerability had been meant for Lord Bragdor, yes,” said Blue. “But due to my misreading the spellbook, it was the armor that was invulnerable.”
The apprentice nodded, realizing why he had never had to polish it.

There will be peace when the Gnomes love their children more than they hate us

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In the nursery, we keep it simple: babies coming in equals babies going out.
Come up short, and security checks the tapes before “Stolen Baby” makes the evening news.
But when we come up with extra, that’s worse.
“Damn those Gnomes,” said Nurse Riley. “They sneak their agents into nurseries to infiltrate our species.”
This giggling, squirming lump in a standard-issue diaper is no child.
Riley pointed out the beard-stubble and bright red shaving rash.
The look in her eyes: sadness and horror.
I signed the authorization. Quarantine, then furnace termination.
They don’t scream, even while burning.
Damn this war.

The Trojans

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The plan is brilliant.
We are French, after all.
We shipped the statue in pieces for assembly in the harbor.
The torso of the statue was large enough to hold 500 soldiers. Our weapons are in the torch.
Vive la France, New Paris!
In the middle of the night, we are to crawl out the door and begin the invasion.
“Where’s the door?” I, the commander, asks.
We tapped out a message of surrender to a confused workcrew on the outside.
Ransom is such a dirty word. The diplomats will smooth it over with a gift of wine and cheese.

Guards

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The brothers stand at either side of the door, wearing their finest red military parade jackets.
Even though they each had a musket on their shoulder, the guns hadn’t been fired in years.
When had they been fired? Let’s see…
I know. I remember.
That day, the brothers had challenged each other to a duel.
After walking ten paces, they turned, and fired.
Both brothers fell over, dead.
I had them both stuffed, dressed, and propped up at either side of the door.
They are pretty useless as guards now, but then they were pretty useless as guards back then.

Three Miles

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Ever walk a mile with a sword stuck through your chest?
I have. Three times.
The first time was when I got into a fight with The Ninja Master.
He was the best swordsman in all of Japan.
So how did I beat him?
I’m not from Japan.
I’m the best in the world.
Not by much – his head flew off as his sword struck home.
Missed every vital organ.
I walked the mile to my master’s house.
“I told you: bring me his head,” he growled.
I had to walk back to get it.
And then, back again.

The Wall

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Just a black angle in the ground, etched marble with so many names.
You could jog past it in less than a minute, nothing but a blur.
The flags at the base of each piece, the flowers.
Boots and candles. Cigarettes and flasks.
It’s the people that make you slow down and stop.
Less and less each year, parents too old to make the trip. Or gone themselves.
Children all grown up. They have children of their own. Easier to just let them learn about it in school.
The wall’s still there.
What was it for? What did we learn?