The Seasonal Rant
drums pounded. the trumpets are being blown.
everywhere there is a call for the brave to rally around the standard. orders are being handed down. I hurriedly put my uniform on. I take a passing glance at the mirror.
My insignia shines. Polished to perfection, fit only for the consummate strategist.
My haircut betrays me. But no wonder, I treasure my youth.
My youth has never been synonymous with inexperience.
I have dodged bullets, I have received the fragments of shells. I have nearly lost an eye or both, and I have taken part in mad dashes and charges that have almost cost me my life and limb.
Now, another campaign is to be carried. The politicians, they, in their overzealousness to achieve peace, has brought as again another war.
Hordes are to be unleashed, and once more I shall take part as fodder.
I am a viscount.
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My past has been colourful because of the events. And of course it is also ripe with the reflections; lessons i’ve learned after I have failed the test. I am a master of hindsight.
Your past is rich. Or does it have anything to do with nicotine? Or countless other snails who cry ‘eeeeeeeee’ at the first signs of frustration.
Mine has been surprisingly devoid of emotions. My words have a false sense of vulnerability. I am not always moved though I may proclaim that I shed tears.
But my words, too, have a deep sense of belief. I could no better describe my victories, however few, but I can vividly recall and drill in your head the tragic smiles involved in my follies.
sometimes I wonder why I am so sure. and why I worry if this surety may leave me yet again another folly.
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It was Tuesday and I felt so lonely. Not sad, not depressed, but utterly alone. There were no comforting thoughts. There was only the maddening sense of work left undone, and work left to be done. There is always the dread of what was left behind, and how it might knock me out tomorrow. There can never be any sense of perpetual relief. Generations of evolving apes have shown us why we can never live without the coping mechanism provided by the sigh.
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The last platoon has left and the last remnants of the Army have gone. I was left in my chambers, a single servant sweeping my office. He seems terribly worried of the future. I have not joined the formation and I requested that I be left behind.
I take off the uniform. I remove the sidearms from the holsters. I burn the mission orders. I put the insignia away, back to the chest where the decorations of my forefathers are. There lies the implements of an Earl, a Marquis, and 2 Counts.
I light a cigarette as I open the windows. The air is calm and the sun is radiant. I dream of faraway lands, where perhaps in a few moments cannonballs will erase whatever semblance of peace there was. The armies will clash and thousands will fall. It occured to me, my nation loves to spill blood from time to time.
I will not take part in this war.
I will lock the chest and throw in into the sea, just as they do in swashbuckling sword and sandal epics. Then the memory of our heroism will be forgotten. After all, heroes always die young. That is why I asked that I be left behind. So that I may live. It may perhaps seem cowardly. But value judgments are always overtly complicated.
Having put aside the boots, I will now put on the slippers. I shall walk towards the home of my beloved. Together we shall listen to some old records where the singers sing of love and its wonders in order to drown the sounds of a far-away war.
