Porcelain Soldiers
A/N: This is about war, obviously, as seen in the eyes of a soldier. I imagined it as Axel and Namine set during the Vietnam War, but could be interpreted as any war from any time or universe really. It's really more of my rant about war in general after watching Jarhead with my 10-year-old brother anyway. Inspired by his relentless jeering, as men were shot and people died. Screwed with my head quite a bit…
Rating: T - No language, only violence and serious views/interpretations that may offend some people.
Disclaimer: I do not own or claim to own Kingdom Hearts or Jarhead, as that would be silly. I am neither a rich Japanese ruler of a world wide corperation, nor a marine soldier in Iraq.
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These children, they are laughing. They are laughing at men being shot at. Cooing as men kill men. 'What world is this that the children find joy in the deaths of these men, not so unlike their own fathers? What joy can they find in these men's deaths whilst others weep?' It is a carnal savagery that overtakes these little boys. That sadistic craving to bring pain and torture and hurt to another, but to what greater cause? You fight for your country and you kill men, but for what? Other men fight for their country and they kill men but for what? They are the enemy. You are the enemy. And this truth justifies all. This knowledge that he is trying to kill you is enough to make both soulssidesheartssouls want to kill each other. Need to kill each other. Without your other's death there is no salvation. No sense of relief. You are still a dead man walking. Without your death there is no finality. No end to the torment he feels and the need to kill you(him)you takes over and you have to kill each other or die and that is that. A dark, twisted circle it is.
And the only thing you can do is hope(pray)hope that you aren't the last one to pull your trigger. Because if you do…if you do there is nothing. You do not exist. You never existed. Because after we die we are just that, dead. We are dead and dead and dead. Dead to the enemy, and dead to the world. Nothing more than a lifeless chunk of skin and bones and rot and nothing NOTHING will change that. You die or you kill and that is that. It is selfish and it is cruel and it is HUMAN. HUMAN to want to live, HUMAN to want to kill, And HUMAN to want to die. And that is everything and nothing and the world still goes on. No matter if you have died, or killed, or lived, because after you die there is nothing. Nothing and emptiness and nothing. It bleeds from your pores. For your pores. For their pores and it doesn't matter because you are not dead. Because you pulled first they are dead. Their families will weep and their friends will mourn but you will not. You have lived. You have survived.
Walking forward through the bombs and shots you look at your victim in this savage hunt. You cannot see, as you could not see before, because the sand and the ash and the killeddeadkilled are in your eyes and fill your senses and you cannot breathe and you cannot feel because they are in you. They are in you and you cannot escape you will not escape there is no escape. And then you open your eyes. And it is a girl. It is a little girl and you realize that you have killed. You have murdered an innocent little girl. The gun was not a gun. No a mere porcelain doll held limply in her dead, dead, dead, dead fingers and they are burning and she is burning and everything is burning and the smell of death and killing and hate and deadlittlegirlsdeadmendeadlittlegirlsdeadlittledoll is in your head and filling your heart(emptyorganemptyplaceemptyemptyempty)and you are there to watch it except you're not because she is dead and it is your fault. The blood runs deep into the ground leaching into the crevices of the sanddirtgrassbodysoul and all you can do is watch the blood run and run and hide and run through and through. It is your blood. Your blood. The girl is dead and you are dead but you are not but why whywhwywhy WHY are you not dead? WHY is she dead?
Because you SHOT her. Because you SHOT her she is dead. And you sit and you think. 'If this were a man could I cry? If this were a man could I go on? If this were a soldier could I move? Why cant I move? I CANT MOVE. WHY CAN'T I MOVE?' And you shoot again. You shoot the remains because the dead are dead and she can't feel it but she is locking you in and you will die if you stay so you shoot. You shoot the blockage and the blockage will move. That's what they said. You have to move, always move. But still you cannot move. Did they lie to you? Is that why this heart(nothingnothingnothing)is impaling your (skin)soul(skin)? Your breathing is quick. But hers is not. And hers is gone and in your lungs and you move. You move for her. For the life you have taken you move because these little boys are laughing and goading and laughing because you shot her and they are still laughingandwhycan'ttheystoplaughingand'shutupplease',youbegandtheyjustwon'tSHUTTHEHELLUPbecauseitsyourfaultallyourfault and its all your fault and sheisdead and the little boys still laugh and you can only cryhurtcrycryCRY. Because the dead are dead and you move for her, beyond the little boys' laughter you cry for her because the little boys are already dead and gone but she is not. Because she is in you because you shot her she lives. You take the porcelain doll and you cry as the blasts from the bombs fill you and you are deaf to the little boys' laughter because in you she lives and in them they die.
Do not fear the lonely soldier. Do not fear the man with the gun. Fear the children, who know only to kill. Fear the teachers who told them to. Fear the governments that teach them to. Fear those same damn governments you shoot for too.