Prompt: The conflict between choosing a personal desire or choosing to conform.
He whispered to me, “in the war you find solace.” I laughed then. A bitter laugh it was. Delusional old man. Who is he to tell I such a ludicrous rationality? Once old, they never do think the same way, now do they?
March. March. The bitter cold wind slaps against my face, I relish in its warmth. It is pleasing, a light touch of the blazes that are entrapped within purgatory. For I feel the pain, yet not a sliver of the cruelty I cast upon the disembodied persons. Sorry imbeciles.
The wind is never an enemy of that fire, it feeds into it. Causes the flames to lick higher, to become merciless. Sweet innocent wind partakes in an evil extremity. It is sweet to the taste of starved lungs. But the wind never knows what would it partake in, for it simply moved, it relished in its pure self. Under God’s will did the wind move, not mine, never yours. It was all God’s doing.
It is now his doing. Our blessed dictator of Germany. All his doing. We seek refuge from the flame. It is our enemy. Hide, hide, it always finds us. It chases at our battered feet. We pant, we need air. Sweet air, the syrupy wind, it is never there. Our starved lungs crave it. With our mouths wide open, does the smoke cunningly swirl within the chambers of our hearts and lungs. Our throats constrict, yet we breathe, the poison engulfs us with its intrusive precision.
But it leaves. Each stay gets prolonged before the next. Death is our sweet syrup. Let us have it.
He dictates, I listen. I must listen. Our terror is forgotten, for that short periodical elongation of time. We forget the terror, but how the scars remain. We relish in our freedom, for now we have the power. We become the flames to their aching souls. But they gaze, their hollow gaze is not cast at me, but on me. They see the burns, the torturous hell I unite within a viscous nights sleep, and somehow they know. Forget them, but as their lids come to a close, their gaze never wavers. It’s permanent. They’re waiting, the all knowing await for my defeat.
Somehow they become engulfed within the wind while I become enveloped within the scorching flames I sought riddance of through burdening them.
I am the power, they the weak. I am their leash, they the animals. They never sought out to wonder, how I was too bound. Though not physically weakened, I was too a hollow shell. My round belly, full cheeks. He used me. He still uses me. I bow to him as you did to me. He is my master, I obey his commands.
I seek riddance. I will always seek riddance. I am given the lavish choice to wait without the physical exhaustion and extenuation you endure. My life is nothing but a fallacy. I wish you would see. My own eyes blinded, and now I wish someone to perceive me with a sudden clarity. I am the fool. Sorry fellow humans. I am always the imbecile. You are the breathing angels that cast spells that blow the wind in various directions.
Have you considered blowing upon me? My lungs are starving, yet I am never famished.
He binds us within his spell. He is the cunning evil. The manipulation. We are granted status, ranking, and given your materialistic items.
But he is the man that offers us a drink to celebrate. His snake eyes watch us carefully. We smell the potent poison, yet can never question, for he can never suspect.
He the puppeteer, I am his puppet, always his puppet. For if I object, it is only but a slight movement of his hand that causes torment and destruction. I won’t get to see my little boy laugh no more. He brings the onslaught of death upon us, my family. His death isn’t the illusive sweet I crave but the gag that causes insufferable gasping, the knife that causes agonizing piercing that never does aim at the heart. We stay upon the brink of death. Eyes open, tormented. He never once lets us close them. Never.
They came as he told they would. The old man, he told me once while smoking his cigarette. The smoke engulfed me then too. My deafened ears couldn’t seem to listen even then.
The terror. The chaos. We were above the Americans weren’t we? They a threat that would never ensue upon us. Never us right? Yet they came. His castle walls came down crumbling. He still sat upon his throne. The rocks tumbled upon us.
The shrieking. The whimper from the machinery. We knew before we attacked. We knew, yet that arrogance remained didn’t it? They could never get us, could they? But they did. With unleashed vengeance they did. Angels, you always blew the wind their way didn’t you?
Explosions, thunderous gunshots. My ears remained alert. Blood. It was everywhere. We rushed only to be shot down once again. Comrades falling. The chaos.
I took a step back. Went further away. My gun, I held it down. No death. Please, no death. The wounds, oh they did open. My scars no longer covered, my battered feet no longer concealed by steel boots. My gate no longer confident but bent. My naked hands were freezing.
I look down, where did the gun go?
I look up, there was only darkness enveloping me. The darkness, it was suffocating. But look down, I was holding the light. A cord did attach itself to it. Warmth. Sweet death bring me your delicacy. Turn around.
The cord, surrounded them. All of them. The soldiers. The men. The imbeciles. It surrounded them. It latched itself onto those jumping into the decay. It surrounded those in tanks. It held the ones hiding at the throats. Their fates forever sealed.
Run away. Run away. The cord. I found the single cord out of its chaotic length.
Look ahead. The light. It’s no longer dark. The light shines brighter. I close my eyes, my mouth agape to taste the sweet syrup.
Never did learn my lesson did I?
My eyes closed, I still felt their burning gaze.
But still I had entered the gates of hell.
He had told me that in war I would find solace.
But it was in hell I found it.
