Tag: war

The Dying Killers

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We smuggle the temple priests, women, and children out of the village under cover of darkness.
The jihad strikes at dawn, mercilessly killing everyone.
The children and women are told not to cry, lest we be spotted.
They cry silently, never sleeping.
The next day, we wait and watch the jihad march South.
Then, one by one, the killers drop dead in the sand.
Returning to the village, we see the destruction… blood everywhere, animals slaughtered, men cut in half, and buildings burned.
And the false granary, full of poisoned seed, empty.
The priests bless the dead, and we rebuild.

The Shadow

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The groundhog pokes its nose out from its hole.
It sniffs the air and smells death, millions of times over.
Burning ash in all directions.
Was it an asteroid?
Was it a nuclear war?
To the groundhog, it doesn’t know. Or care.
It doesn’t matter whether it sees its shadow or if there will be six more weeks of winter.
There will be plenty to forage on when the burning storm dies down. Plenty of water in cracked pipes and cisterns to drink.
Unless there are survivors.
Then, it will be hunted.
It goes back into its hole to hide.

PENALTY STORY: The City Of The Dead

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The entire city is rubble.
No bombs. No floods.
Earthquake.
Bodies covered with dust, blood, and debris all over the place.
There is no light, except for the fires sweeping through buildings and the moonlight in this grimy night.
No sirens of ambulances. Water flowing through busted pipes.
Just endless screaming, crying, and shrieking.
In French, Spanish, and English they shout “Why?”
Another aftershock, a rumble… more clouds of dust kicked up in the air, people run but have nowhere to go.
I pick up the remote and bring up the program guide.
There must be something else on TV.

Victory Square

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No more bombers.
Silence.
We walk to the center of town, stepping over bodies and fallen streetlamps.
Collapsed buildings line the path.
More bodies in the park, trees with shattered leaves.
“Victory Square” says a monument, half of a horse.
Where is the rest of it? Where is the rider?
“Centaur,” says my guide. “Nikos The Wise.”
He tries to tell me the story of the centaur, but it’s just gibberish.
We’ve come across no other survivors.
So I pull out my pistol, shoot him, and then call headquarters on my radio.
“Total victory,” I say. “Bring in the transports.”

The Robot Flock

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The parish priest was tired of giving sermons every week, so he built a robot to deliver his sermons.
The worshipers were tired of listening to the priest’s sermons, so they built robots to listen to the sermons.
Robots delivering sermons to robots, week in and week out.
After the nuclear war, all the humans were dead.
But the robots kept going to the services, and the priest robot kept delivering them.
Nobody knows what the robots do the rest of the time.
Because all the humans died.
Maybe they write silly stories, and you listener robots listen to them?

The Field Manual

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To be caught behind enemy lines is a dangerous thing, but as long as you have a flute, you’ll be fine.
The Army Field Manual has all sorts of unusual regulations like this one:
Leaving guns out for the Bullet Fairy to reload.
Smearing mud over your eyes to make you invisible to your enemies.
Licking a jeep’s steering wheel to make it start.
I’m on my third highlighter already.
Maybe it’s some kind of sick joke? Someone’s pulling a prank on me?
Then I look at the publishing credits: Published In China.
I wonder when the invasion will be.

The Candy Prince

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The Candy Price sits on his chocolate bunny, watching the troops walk past.
His lemondrop eyes glisten in admiration of his army.
“March, my men!” he cheers, and the army raises a shout.
A gumdrop button falls from his Marzipan coat. He has been outside for too long today.
He returns to his palace, inspecting his frosting hair in the mirror.
“I am coming apart!” he cries to his butler. “Help me!”
He tries to change suits, but feels something snap.
The chef-surgeon arrives, but shakes his head.
“So, how do you feel about being The Candy Princess?” he offers.

The Final Dream Of Robert McNamara

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Robert McNamara stood in the middle of a field, stark naked, and watched two circuses slowly moving towards each other in what would amount to a catastrophic collision.
“This is entirely too complex a situation,” he said, and he broke it up into its components: clowns, spectators, acrobats, animal acts, carnival rides, and cotton candy.
Then he streamlined the process by which each component functioned within the whole.
The ringmasters thanked him, and a single more efficient and effective circus rolled slowly across the field.
“Why dream this up at all?” he mumbled, and with that, the old man died.

Skydiving

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The instructor said that I should read the manual very carefully.
So, I did.
But I read it backwards.
Instead of getting in the airplane and jumping out of it, I was standing in the middle of a field. The parachute was draped over me, and I was tangled up in its lines.
When the plane passed overhead, I shouted “I’ll be right up!” and I jumped as high as I could.
No, I didn’t fly up to the plane. Instead, I twisted my ankle on a rock and got tangled up in the parachute lines even worse.
Stupid manual.

Burn the trees

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We need more farmland, so we must clear more trees.
The warriors tried to burn the trees down, but once we lit them on fire, they continued burning for weeks.
The fire rages in their branches without consuming them.
Instead of clearing the forest of all trees, we cleared the forest of all the inhabitants.
The flames scared away all the creatures with any sense to fear fire, and those that didn’t, they burned.
We watched the forest burn from our huts on the hills, and knowing that the planting season would pass us by, we prepared our fishing nets.