War - By Mizeta Moon

The crowd’s mood was changing. Where before they had hope for their future, recent events made it impossible to believe they would survive the constant attack on everything they’d strived for. Children bleeding to death in the streets. Buildings they’d scarred their hands to erect turned to rubble. Bombs exploding and disrupting a way of life focused on sharing and caring for one another. Sirens blaring. Machine guns burping death and destruction in every direction. Tanks using their steel treads to trample everything in their path. The crowd was now individuals fleeing the onslaught of an enemy hell-bent on genocide. 

When their homes were destroyed, they survived by salvaging anything they could reap from the rubble. A jar of pickles. A bag of flour. Two eggs from a chicken whose feathers were singed. Water filtered through a handkerchief from a muddy puddle to soothe a thirsting tongue. Whatever was required to defy the enemy became their daily practice. Their bodies were sore and tired but their souls were unwilling to relent to terrorism. 

“Up there! Can’t you see it?” A woman cried out in the midst of a missile strike that killed a hundred people trying to evacuate. “It’s a rainbow. An omen that salvation is imminent.” Unfortunately, her head exploded moments later as a sniper placed her in their sights. Hope was no longer a commodity. Bleakness painted a grim reality for all to experience. Rainbows were simply weather phenomena instead of something to feel good about. Flies swarming around corpses had become the norm. When it rained, gutters ran red with blood. 

Since the beginning of time there has always been someone jealous of what another has to eat, or their property, and has sought to usurp it. The thinking is– whatever they believe is wrong and we the righteous true believers have a right to expunge them and absorb the wealth of their labor. War is our way of life. Hatred and destruction are the only path we tread. To share the world is the aim of weaklings as only the ruthless and strong survive. Incessant war creates jobs and the need to rebuild so we are justified in spilling blood. 

 I, for one, will forever seek to share and plant seeds in opposition to the idea that war is the only way we can maintain a viable economy. My crops may feed few but the  joy they bring will echo beyond my tenancy.    

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