The title of this post, and the tagline of this blog, was a line taken from a story I never finished back in my senior year at High School. It also happens to be the line that spawned the story.
The story was supposed to be about a world caught up in eternal warfare, with factions constantly vying for dominance in a scarred and broken land. While there are lands that are still fertile and green with life, much of the landmass of the world is nothing but one big graveyard.
Sounds hopeful so far right?
The plot follows the life of a young lieutenant serving under a brutal and demaning leader. He obeys questionable orders. He betrays his friends and comrades to further the military goals of his leader. Whether it be coordinating the ousting and execution of his superiors or staging false attacks on cities, he performs his orders with extreme proficiency.
By his actions, he is a monster. The character knows this fully, and he has only one defense for what he does. “The ends justify the means”. And when asked what prevents him from deviating from his supposedly benevolent goal and fully becoming damned, he only responds by saying, “My will”.
Yet only on the surface was the story ever supposed to be about physical warfare. Instead, I had meant the entire world and the events that occured to be a metaphor for the other kind of warfare I saw. Clashes between political ideologies, religious beliefs, cultures, etc.
More on this later, I’ll finish by quoting the opening that I had written:
“The battle lines were drawn far before we were born. They are still drawn today, running over past lines with shameless abandon. They intersect, run parallel, or skirt each other with disdainful, forgetful snobbery. But the lines are temporary, for enemies are eternal. And we are all forced to fight with a quiet desperation lurking in all our hearts. We gloss it over with optimism, mask it with determination, and hide it behind fury. But despite all our efforts, we all feel the same tranquil bittersweet hopelessness. For our invisible war never changes. New weapons will be invented; different factions shall evolve out of their forebears. But our invisible war will never change.”
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