The rage of years welled up in me
then, finally bursting forth in an instant when flesh touched iron, when my
finger pulled the trigger sending the ball forth with deadly speed and uncanny
aim for these hefty models. Then I felt it, the rage lingering even though I
had fired upon my enemy; those I had been trained to kill since I volunteered,
and trained to hate earlier than that.
I don’t know what I thought would
have happened, but I was surprised to find my rage was not immediately appeased
upon firing the gun, upon shooting the enemy. I had seen the shot strike one of
the enemy troops and so I followed to confirm my kill, only to create doubt in
my mind. My anger did not wane with every step toward him, nor as I stood over
him while he gasped his last breaths.
I had thought that somehow this war
was going to end the hate, but it had finally struck me now, all too late, how
wrong I had been. Here I was watching a man die his last breaths thanks my
hate-fueled gunshot, and yet my hate had not been satisfied.
Here was a man just as I, built of
flesh and bone, muscle and blood, skin and hair. In his life he hungered as I
do, required sleep and warmth and shelter. I looked on him and saw his
clothing, saw how much it was like my own, or would be had I not been wearing
my uniform. I saw his eyes in my own, he breathed as I do only shallower, the
life slowly leaving him. He could smell the heat and smoke around us just as I
could, hear the distant shots and shouts around us. He as well could taste –
now he tasted his own blood, and I fought back the strange thought that if I
should taste it, it would be as much red iron liquid as my own.
Here before me was another human
being whose heart beat as mine, though more and more faint just as his lungs
also pumped as mine do. But then it happened and I looked down at the man, and
realized how different we truly were. Not that he was now dead and I was not,
not that he was a civilian and I was not – no, I would die one day as well and
I was a civilian too, not long ago. No those did not serve to separate us.
It was when I killed him, out of
hate, did he remain a man and I was no longer.
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