by Christian Theodossy

The men had been fighting for years, eons. No one, not a soul, not even the old generals commanding young soldiers to their deaths could remember why it had started. But still they fought. They fought day and night, not even stopping to remove the bodies of nameless men. It was no “civilized” war like people fought in old times. There were no ranks of soldiers lined up to open fire and mow down the opposing lines, but instead a confused, angry, terrified mass of human beings fighting, tearing each other apart, gouging and ripping and biting and cutting. And the demon of war stood above on a hill, looking down on the great war he had begun.

“This is good,” he said.

“The men fight. They suffer. They die. And for no other reason than because they do.”

The fighting went on for centuries, children being trained to fight at an early age and sent off to battle when they were ready. The sides were evenly matched, no side ever gaining ground on the other. They simply fought on a scorched field covered in packed dirt and blood from hundreds of thousands of restless feet pounding the ground. The people were beyond hope that the war would ever end, so it became their way of life. They accepted the fact that any able-bodied person would be sent either to the field of battle or to some factory through which the war could be continued through the manufacture of bayonets and guns and gasses. More centuries passed, and the men began to tire. It seemed like the weariness of their ancestors was beginning to slow their bullets and dull their swords. Finally one day, two soldiers stood locked in combat. They had only their bare hands left with which to kill, their ammunition long expended and their bayonets only recently  lost in the frenzy of battle. All at once the two soldiers stopped. They looked each other full in the face and saw for the first time what no one, not a soul, not even the old generals commanding young soldiers to their deaths has seen in eons. They saw another human being. The demon of war saw the two men staring at each other, and he flew down from his perch on the hill.

“Soldiers!” he said.

“Why have you stopped fighting? Pick up your weapons and kill!”

But the soldiers looked at the demon. They looked at each other. And they said,

“No.”

The soldiers said, “We have been fighting for too long. We are sick of war. We grow weary of death and desolation. We have forgotten what we are.”

And the demon of war answered,

“No.”

He said, “This is what you are,” as he waved his arm over the field of battle. Men were still slaughtering each other like animals, machines full of hate and fire in their eyes, and darkness and fear in their hearts. “You are machines, driven to kill and destroy and HATE. You must fight! THIS is what you are.”

But the soldiers stood still. They looked at the demon. And they looked at each other. And they did not pick up their weapons. Instead they stood, and they talked, and soon they were yelling to other men, yelling for them to stop. Those men yelled to other men, and they to others, until the whole field of battle was quiet and the men stood talking, confused.

“What has happened?” the soldiers said to one another, “What have we done?”

And the demon of war said, “What have you DONE!”

He said, “You are humans! You are born to hate and fight and kill! I have watched you do this for eons! You, may, not, STOP! You will CONTINUE!”

But the soldiers looked at the demon. They looked at each other. And they said,

“No.”

They said, “We are humans, and we are good. We have been led astray, but these men have found us, they have taught us to be human again. We are not machines of war, we are people. And we will not fight any more.”

The demon of war was terrified.

He though, “If they do not fight, what will I be? If there is no war, what can be of the demon of war?”

So he threw the first two soldiers to the ground, and he said,

“YOU. WILL ALL. FIGHT. YOU WILL FIGHT FOREVER. YOU WILL FIGHT, AND KILL, AND DESTROY AND YOU WILL NEVER STOP! YOU WILL FIGHT UNTIL YOU ARE ALL DEAD AND YOUR CHILDREN ARE ALL THAT ARE LEFT! AND THEY WILL FIGHT UNTIL THEY ARE DEAD AND THEIR CHILDREN WILL FIGHT. AND THEIR CHILDREN WILL FIGHT AND THEIR GRANDCHILDREN WILL FIGHT AND EVERY GENERATION WILL FIGHT UNTIL THE END OF TIME! AND THE WORLD WILL BE BETTER FOR IT! FIGHT!”

But they soldiers looked at the demon. They looked at each other. And they helped the two soldiers to their feet. They tended their wounds, and they tended each other’s wounds. Men from opposing sides helped each other lift fallen comrades onto gurneys, and men from opposing sides wept for them together. The demon of war was paralyzed with fear, he stood looking out at the field of battle where no more blood was shed, and no more men would die. He looked out at the men helping each other, and he fell to his knees in agony, then fell to his side in the bitterest of pain. But the men did not notice him, they tread over him like he wasn’t there, and they continued to help one another until the living were separated from the dead. The demon of war let out a cry, but only a few old men even turned their heads as if they had heard something. The demon shifted and moaned, but could not get back to his feet, he shriveled and grew thin, and finally, with a final exhalation, the demon of war died and was no more. His body turned to dust on the field of battle and was blown away by a cool wind. The men gathered their dead and stripped them of their armor so no one could tell what side they had been from, and they cremated them all on the field of battle, where they could finally find rest. The fires loosened the dirt of the ground, and it became soft again like it had been in times long forgotten.

The two soldiers looked at each other, and they looked at the other soldiers with tears in their eyes, the greatest burden lifted from them all.

And they said,

“This war is over.”