Contemplations

[MIDN Mainolfi]

I wrote this when I was in a bit of a slump. It isn't meant to be an AAR, so it's not structured very well. It just is what it is, I guess would be the best way to describe it. It also doesn't have a title, I haven't
been able to come up with a fitting one yet, but maybe one will come around.

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I'm not exactly sure when it happened. Maybe it was when I heard about the first shots fired at Lexington and Concord. Maybe I just always had a hidden desire to see the colonies gain their independence. I suppose I'll never figure it out, and suppose I'll never figure out why I thought of it now: in a muddy trench with six-pounders firing their deadly arsenal overhead at men whom I've never met, but wished with all their heart to prevent from taking what I believed to be mine, and for that, I felt no remorse. No regret. No pity to the men who are currently getting blown apart by my comrades' aggression; I was sure they were putting all of their hate and lust for vengeance into every shot they fired. Hatred so deep, so heartfelt, so......passionate, it would only serve to singe the wounds delivered as a consequence of a tyrant's stubborn will to maintain control over all he could. Over a place he'd never go, over people whom he'd never meet. This was the consequence of human nature. The natural will to be free against the natural desire to control. What good could become of such a collision, if there is any at all? If there is, it has not shown itself now, nor, I believe, will it ever as long as the two strongest human passions in existence continue to meet, and neither is willing to give way. It makes me wonder will there ever be peace? Will the two ever learn to co-exist? I hear my Captain yelling, ordering us to prepare to fire. I stand and take aim. The battlefield before me is torn to shreds. Bodies lay scattered about. The stench of the dead and the screams of the dying overrun my senses. The early evening sky taken from view by burnt gunpowder hanging in the stagnant air. I stare beyond my sights, and take a quick glance at the man who's life I am about to take.

What will he think, what will he feel if I'm successful? And if I'm not, what will I feel if he is able to complete the task that I failed to do? What will change? What will stay the same? The lines are drawing closer. I have not heard the order, and the comrades with whom I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with are the only thing keeping my nerve. I begin trembling as the six-pounder begin firing overhead once again, and I watch as bit and pieces of men fly in every which direction, covering those that are unlucky enough to still be living through this in their organs and blood. The enemy draws closer still. I cannot smell, as the gunpowder has lined my nostrils and taken it from me. I cannot feel. To feel is to fail. To fail is to die. I cannot begin to feel what I am about to do. The enemy draws yet closer, to within a stones throw of me. I hear foot steps behind me. All goes quite. I have not gone deaf, yet I cannot hear a thing. I know what is about to come, but still I fear it. I lick my lips and swallow, and I hear the order to fire........