War & Its Malevolence

What was it like--that country, that farm? They fasted through the religious season. Can't imagine how or why they'd do it. Why now? How with all those children? The babies thrived, she said, despite conditions.

The unimaginable grief when the first casualty came home. The trees heavy with fruit and the older children who climbed high. High enough to see the cavalcade enter through the city gates. The oldest of the young made a solemn vow unheard by all & crossed his heart & looked at a passing sparrow. You will pay and pay and pay. He spat on the ground just missing his sister on a lower branch who turned up without opening her eyes.

She climbed down, shook the tree, & claimed her prize of fruit & the wailing of her brother who landed across the wire fence. The other children held on though some had fallen onto lower branches. Those still hanging there answered my questions politely when I founded them there.

That night we feasted. Even the young were exquisite butchers after the men left for the front & their mothers & married sisters began spending the workweek in factories.

Or so I thought, until, while taking a piss in the commons in the middle of the night, I saw wolves walk into the children's homes. The wolves walked upright & massacred all the little ones and their older siblings, too young for the front & factories, including the girl who shook the tree and the brother who, though of warage, lay in bed unable to fight.

I screamed. What else could I do?

When I woke up in the middle of the pasture, the sun was high & the children were running about, galloping, chasing dragonflies, checking each other for ticks now & again. They told me I'd had a bad dream & that they'd had it too. That weekend no women came back from the factories & then one morning I was the only one left & there was no city.