Disclaimer: Col. William Tavington does not belong to me.
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Bleeding Blue
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People will wish, have always wished, that I have a son. They have prayed, heads bowed, crosses bared, they have tried to fathom me and these people, these obtuse, dull-witted, silly people have failed to understand. People, no matter how bulbously inane and distasteful, want to make everyone human. And this cannot be done.
They wish me to have a son, to have an estranged, dark-haired son living somewhere hidden that I think of constantly, and a pure, pretty wife hidden, too. They want me to cry in secret and keep face in public. They wish to hate me for who I am, but honor who I hide, although I hide no one and nothing from them. I am my family, I am who I need. I am the air I breathe, my rage is why I fight, I do not need a mewling, putrid infant or an ugly, expectant woman or a dark-haired son to make me fight. My rage is why I fight. I am why I fight. I am my rage.
These men who need reasons to fight make me sick. They fight for freedom, love, England, the Americas, sons, daughters, land, money. They think not of themselves, but everything of themselves, and therefore, they are not whole. I see them shaking and I can barely resist taking them out of their misery myself—they should be ashamed. These men are trying to be good and noble, but do they not see? They have still spilled blood, whether it red or blue.
They refuse to see me as a human, although they want to. They sometimes want to so bad, I can smell it in their sweat. Coming from an esteemed household, I have no sob story. Mother and Father did not kiss my cheeks goodbye or wish me luck or promise they would find me. I am sure they looked up one morning and glanced back down, and I have no qualms, I have nothing. I have everything, too.
Sometimes I wonder how it is for the others. I wonder how they can be so empty. They cannot really feel it. They almost grasp it sometimes, and then it slips from their faces leaving them like statues in the rain. They cannot taste it. They are not hungry for it.
They want to be in jest and have normal conversations, but at the same time they want to have their wartime as if it is teatime and they are dissatisfied if the weather is unattractive.
People do not like people who have not loved. It is extraordinarily hypocritical, thus prolonging the cycle, however people just are not attracted to coldness. Coldness suffices, in my case, on the spur of the moment, at some boring party, after too many spirits, in secluded corners or attics, and it rarely waits in the morning. And she's never pure and pretty. Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, the lesser of the coldhearted must be sacrificed for the greater good—it's all in a line of duty, always painful, sometimes professional.
Yet I could taste it, and I was hungry for it, and by God, I did my best.
For myself.
I need nothing, I need everything, to be satisfied.