the war is over

A piece about war. Does not necessarily convey my feelings about war. With quotes from Un-go. 

--

Emerging from the safe house into the quiet devastation, they breathe in regret. We should have sucked the marrow from its bones. We should have wrapped our legs around it and rode it until we collapsed. We have made war into a joke. You, me, all of us. 

This is what we have made.

--

The vividly burning orange sunset is a reminder of all that is wrong with the world. The sky looks as if it has been set on fire and left to spread, waving fumes of purple making their way across the horizon and reaching into the lungs of the citizens now standing dazedly in the aftermath. 

The war is over. 

The war is over?

The war that has taken over their lives for twelve years is over. They are at a loss. Breathing in the sulphuric air, they try to be cheerful. They try to be happy. They tell themselves that life can go on normally now, but then they set eyes upon the ruined concrete. Life can proceed, but where is life?

The older ones pause, blinking, taking in the damage done to their land. It is not their land any more. It is foreign, it is alien. It is blood and it is death. Their outstretched hands quiver. In the span of a single war, their skin has turned papery and white, wrinkles marking themselves on unfamiliar territory. A single war and they have missed their prime. 

The younger ones touch the ash on the floor. It is a thick carpet of bone and meat, vapourised, blown up, left to rot. The ash is grey and pungent and sticks to their sickly pale skin. They haven't seen the sun for years. It wasn't safe. There still isn't any sun. The ash has blocked it out. The broken remains of people they used to know scream in their lungs. 

They hardly know what it's like to be alive. They feel the ground, pull at the walls, but it is all the same. Dead. Gone. Ghosts of life. The war has stolen their words. The young survivors are not survivors. They are mourners. In the span of a single war, they have learned death. There is no future. They see with blind eyes.

There are those who have grown up with the war. They shield their eyes, unaccustomed even to the weak, filtered rays of true light. This is the outside? they ask. It's so big. It's so strange. Mum, did people go outside all the time back then? What was it like?

They are the only ones who are yet still alive. Their souls only semi-torn. Born to the copper red that seeps through their thrice-bolted iron door, they know nothing but war. Their parents cover their eyes and shut their ears, no no no no no, darling, it's nothing, shush. Go to bed now.

Nearby, a child not yet five nudges half a skull with his foot. The orange sky flares again above him. 

The war is over. 

--

The war is over?

--

These people have forgotten how to live. These people have never known how to live in the first place. They stumble over ashy corpses, fumble their way to the edge, and stare at yet more corpses. 

Come on, a mother says, tugging at her child's shirt. Let's go back. There's nothing left here. Her words echo in the silence. Everyone is silent. Their eyes are silent. Her child follows her back into the safe house that they have lived in for the past four years. That is their home now. The safe house is home. Twenty inches of hardened steel for windows. 

Everyone watches them go. They do not come out again.

--

Who says the war is over? There is no over. There is no simple end to eternal torment. They say heaven is a place on earth, but hell is a place on earth too. Their heaven is the safe, familiar constraint of metal. Green grass turns to grey, blue burns into purple, and the great expanse of empty space is their hell. 

You can't bring an end to a war this huge. It entwines itself into your soul, freezes itself into place along your veins, and never goes away. Their life is war. All they have known is war. War has replaced softer emotions of love. 

War. That is their reality. 

The war is over?

The war continues in their minds.

They stand in the toxic light, taking faltering steps towards one direction and then moving backwards again. This is not their world any more. Everything is wrong. They don't know what to do. They take one step forward and five steps back. 

The sky consumes itself in fire. 

One step forward five steps back.

The war is over?

It must be a lie. It is always a lie. You can't trust anyone. The government has sold us out. We should go back. It must be a lie. It's not safe.

The war is over?

Mummy? Don't cry. Let's go back. If you're scared outside then let's go back.

The war is over?

--

Little boxes sitting in the snow. 

Those aren't boxes. It's steel alloy, diamond steel. It's a safe house.

Hey Steve, come over here, there are still some of those old relics lying around after all. Maybe we can sell it, this stuff is expensive. Steve, there's a ton of it just sitting here! Shit, we just won the fucking lottery!

Loud banging. A small but powerful motor starts humming. The metal melts under its knife.

Pause. Silence. He picked up the lump of metal. 

In the darkness, he sees nothing but bones.