this is an orginal fiction i did for a writing game, but the game was cancled before it began so i didnt know what else to do with it. tell me what yout think.
“What are you thinking about?” Zane asks me as I gazed across the blood stained grass.
“Who said I was thinking.” I tell him. In truth, I really wasn’t. I had just been staring out over what had yesterday been the closest I’ve ever been to hell.
“My mistake, I just assumed you were just thinking about Nathanial.”
That makes me laugh, though it’s not the merry sound that it once was. More like the echo of something that had died.
“Thinking about the dead is a waste of time.” I tell him, and it is a truth I have come to believe since the war started.
“But he was your best friend.”
“He was a coward! A war is no place for a coward! You should have heard him talk before the battle. He was talking like he had already been killed. Now look at him! Just another body in the sea of carnage!”
“War does strange things to men.” Zane tells me. No better truth had ever been spoken.
Almost as if my thoughts had summoned him, Christopher popped up behind us, saying “It sucks the joy out of the most joyful of fellows and makes the gloomiest of chums see the good in everything.”
“That’s strange. I remember you to be one of those ‘cheerful fellows’ and yet here you are, cheer still intact.” I tell him coldly.
“Aye, but I had too much for it to get rid of completely.” Christopher tells me, but then a new look cross’ his face. A look that we soldiers would understand. “Though that’s not to say that I have all of my joy. This war has changed me like the rest of you.”
“So even the dreamer finally admits his change.” I say, that same hollow laughter coming out of my mouth.
“So what did Nathanial say before the battle?”
“‘Today I’m going to die. I don’t want to die. We fight for people who think we’re arrogant idiots, we fight for a king who does not know what it is like out here, we fight for a country that will always be at war, and we fight against men who are in similar situations! I have nothing to return to, since Emily died, but I still don’t want to die! No, it’s not that I don’t want to die; I don’t want to die in battle. It’s not the agony I fear, it’s not the fact that I might die slowly on the ground that I worry about. I just don’t want to take another man’s life before I die, not without a noble cause for doing so! It’s not that I fear God, I do but I know of His forgiveness. I don’t want to kill when I know my own time is short and know it was not for anything I believed in. I don’t want my last few moments spent snuffing out someone else’s life for nothing! What kind of a death would that be for me…I would give anything to be away from here, or struck dead here and now.’”
“Nathaniel doesn’t sound too much like a coward if he went out onto the battle field anyway, so why called him a coward?” Christopher asks me.
“Oh trust me, if he could have deserted, he would have. But it was to late then. If he would have tried, someone would have cut him down.”
“So you think he’s a coward because he didn’t want to fight?” Zane asks me, “Tell me, what is it he had to fight for? From the sounds of it, he had nothing. So what man in his right mind would want to fight in a war like this with nothing to fight for?”
“For honor!” I tell him; for it was the very reason I was here.
“My friend, some of us value our lives more then honor.” Christopher tells me, laughing as if it was some sort of joke.
“Then why are you here?”
“I have a son, he’s about this tall,” Christopher tells me as he holds his hand to just above his knees, “He's young, you know? Still believe those tales we adults tell him to scare him, still thinks the worlds black and white, that there is just good and evil and no in between. If I can keep him like that for a little while longer, I’ll be happy. That, my good man, is why I’m here.”
“I’m here,” Zane puts in, “Because there’s a certain lady waiting for me at home, and I can’t just let the other side win while knowing that.” I roll my eyes, and Zane gets mad at me, “So tell us good sir, are you only here for honor?”
“That, among other things.”
“And those other things are?”
“I come from a family of soldiers. All the men in my family have been soldiers as far back as we all can remember. Those who did not become soldiers were cast out. True, I could have not become one, I could have made it on without the help of my family, but I didn’t want to see the shame in their eyes. Honor might not mean anything to you men, but it’s what I grew up learning about and to me it’s worth more then my life.”
Zane sighs, “But you shouldn’t hold everyone to the same standard as yourself. If I recall correctly, Nathanial was one of them who got called in thanks to the draft. He never wanted to be here, but he still did his job, even after it broke him. I find that to be pretty brave.”
“As do I.” Christopher adds.
“Perhaps you’re right,” I admit, “It just annoys me. He was one of our best fighters, and he saved my hide more then once. I always thought he enjoyed the job, because that’s how he put on till this day.”
“That was an act.” Christopher tells me bluntly.
“What do you mean an act?”
“I guess you never saw what he did sometimes. Never saw him walk the battle field and inspect our allies and enemies alike, just to see their faces, to wash his hands constantly as if there was something on them that just wouldn’t come off, and never saw him cry when he thought no one was looking. The Nathaniel I saw wasn’t a lover of war; he was a man trying to hide his slow descent into insanity as he continued to battle on this Hell field.”
I look out at the blood red field again, and then look up at the light blue sky, “Nathanial…”
Then the voice of one of our commanders reached our ears, “Time to move out men, to the next battle!”
“We better obey him, c’mon guys.” Zane says as he helps me up.
“Right,” I reply, not giving the field another look and we walk away from bodies and the people they once were, not knowing if one day soon, we will also become one of them. But I’ve come to accept that.
“What are you thinking about?” Zane asks me as I gazed across the blood stained grass.
“Who said I was thinking.” I tell him. In truth, I really wasn’t. I had just been staring out over what had yesterday been the closest I’ve ever been to hell.
“My mistake, I just assumed you were just thinking about Nathanial.”
That makes me laugh, though it’s not the merry sound that it once was. More like the echo of something that had died.
“Thinking about the dead is a waste of time.” I tell him, and it is a truth I have come to believe since the war started.
“But he was your best friend.”
“He was a coward! A war is no place for a coward! You should have heard him talk before the battle. He was talking like he had already been killed. Now look at him! Just another body in the sea of carnage!”
“War does strange things to men.” Zane tells me. No better truth had ever been spoken.
Almost as if my thoughts had summoned him, Christopher popped up behind us, saying “It sucks the joy out of the most joyful of fellows and makes the gloomiest of chums see the good in everything.”
“That’s strange. I remember you to be one of those ‘cheerful fellows’ and yet here you are, cheer still intact.” I tell him coldly.
“Aye, but I had too much for it to get rid of completely.” Christopher tells me, but then a new look cross’ his face. A look that we soldiers would understand. “Though that’s not to say that I have all of my joy. This war has changed me like the rest of you.”
“So even the dreamer finally admits his change.” I say, that same hollow laughter coming out of my mouth.
“So what did Nathanial say before the battle?”
“‘Today I’m going to die. I don’t want to die. We fight for people who think we’re arrogant idiots, we fight for a king who does not know what it is like out here, we fight for a country that will always be at war, and we fight against men who are in similar situations! I have nothing to return to, since Emily died, but I still don’t want to die! No, it’s not that I don’t want to die; I don’t want to die in battle. It’s not the agony I fear, it’s not the fact that I might die slowly on the ground that I worry about. I just don’t want to take another man’s life before I die, not without a noble cause for doing so! It’s not that I fear God, I do but I know of His forgiveness. I don’t want to kill when I know my own time is short and know it was not for anything I believed in. I don’t want my last few moments spent snuffing out someone else’s life for nothing! What kind of a death would that be for me…I would give anything to be away from here, or struck dead here and now.’”
“Nathaniel doesn’t sound too much like a coward if he went out onto the battle field anyway, so why called him a coward?” Christopher asks me.
“Oh trust me, if he could have deserted, he would have. But it was to late then. If he would have tried, someone would have cut him down.”
“So you think he’s a coward because he didn’t want to fight?” Zane asks me, “Tell me, what is it he had to fight for? From the sounds of it, he had nothing. So what man in his right mind would want to fight in a war like this with nothing to fight for?”
“For honor!” I tell him; for it was the very reason I was here.
“My friend, some of us value our lives more then honor.” Christopher tells me, laughing as if it was some sort of joke.
“Then why are you here?”
“I have a son, he’s about this tall,” Christopher tells me as he holds his hand to just above his knees, “He's young, you know? Still believe those tales we adults tell him to scare him, still thinks the worlds black and white, that there is just good and evil and no in between. If I can keep him like that for a little while longer, I’ll be happy. That, my good man, is why I’m here.”
“I’m here,” Zane puts in, “Because there’s a certain lady waiting for me at home, and I can’t just let the other side win while knowing that.” I roll my eyes, and Zane gets mad at me, “So tell us good sir, are you only here for honor?”
“That, among other things.”
“And those other things are?”
“I come from a family of soldiers. All the men in my family have been soldiers as far back as we all can remember. Those who did not become soldiers were cast out. True, I could have not become one, I could have made it on without the help of my family, but I didn’t want to see the shame in their eyes. Honor might not mean anything to you men, but it’s what I grew up learning about and to me it’s worth more then my life.”
Zane sighs, “But you shouldn’t hold everyone to the same standard as yourself. If I recall correctly, Nathanial was one of them who got called in thanks to the draft. He never wanted to be here, but he still did his job, even after it broke him. I find that to be pretty brave.”
“As do I.” Christopher adds.
“Perhaps you’re right,” I admit, “It just annoys me. He was one of our best fighters, and he saved my hide more then once. I always thought he enjoyed the job, because that’s how he put on till this day.”
“That was an act.” Christopher tells me bluntly.
“What do you mean an act?”
“I guess you never saw what he did sometimes. Never saw him walk the battle field and inspect our allies and enemies alike, just to see their faces, to wash his hands constantly as if there was something on them that just wouldn’t come off, and never saw him cry when he thought no one was looking. The Nathaniel I saw wasn’t a lover of war; he was a man trying to hide his slow descent into insanity as he continued to battle on this Hell field.”
I look out at the blood red field again, and then look up at the light blue sky, “Nathanial…”
Then the voice of one of our commanders reached our ears, “Time to move out men, to the next battle!”
“We better obey him, c’mon guys.” Zane says as he helps me up.
“Right,” I reply, not giving the field another look and we walk away from bodies and the people they once were, not knowing if one day soon, we will also become one of them. But I’ve come to accept that.
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