Who wins a war anyway?
Does war ever ends?
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This is the thing about war — it never ends.
It might seem to end for now, but it’s only a pause, momentary and fleeting; but rest assured, the war will rear its ugly head again.
Those who are defeated may have swallowed the poison of anger today, but this poison will linger in their bodies, contaminating their insides for decades, passing from one generation to the next, until it has festered enough that it can’t be contained anymore.
And then, one day, this puss of hatred will burst out, showering the world around in the same poison they had consumed once, giving back the same pain that once had made them cry.
Like a wildfire, the war and its hatred spread — from one generation to the next and so on.
The father’s defeat shames the son, the son’s shame angers the grandson, and the grandson’s anger makes his son stand in front of a complete stranger and call him his enemy.
This war is that darkness in which everything is ominous — trembling shadows on every wall, strange whispers in every corner, making even the most innocuous objects seem ghoulish.
In this theatre of shadows, every whisper seems a cry; even a shiver appears to be an attack. Long dead ghosts become alive, threats that don’t exist become imminent. And in this confusion of shadows, in this cacophony of made-up sounds, the war starts, once again, continuing forever, neverending.
But if the war never ends, why do people fight it anyways, and who wins in such a war.
Countries do not win a war, nor do their people.
The soldier who has given his life does not win the war, nor the one who has returned home maimed. Even the one who returns with the complete body does not win — he appears complete only from the outside; from inside, he is even worse.
A mother who has lost his unmarried son does not win the war. The father who has laid his son in the coffin does not win the war. Nor the brother who will never fight with his brother does not win the war; nor do the lover who will never have the same love again wins the war.
Nobody wins the war.
Everyone loses in the war.
And yet we fight the war.
Somebody must gain from such war.
Somebody must gain pleasure from seeing the world burning and the bodies piling.
Somebody must derive delight from seeing the order disrupting, chaos spreading.
Somebody must not care about winning or right or wrong but relishing the river of blood filling up the streets, mound of human bodies dotting the entire cities.
Yes, such sadistic men do exist, and one such man is standing among us today, invoking the same horrors his monster predecessors had invoked, resuming the same game of blood as they had played.
He must pay for it.
