Nameless Soldiers

Soldier's Grief

We are all nameless soldiers, sent forever to fight and never to have peace of mind, lest we need to use our mind at all.

I see them from far off, the two huddled close in the middle of destruction, and I remember that day of her lying dead in my arms when I could have saved her. That's why I avoid them. I'm jealous of what they share that is so perfect, when all I have is indeed ruin and grief.

I named my gundam after her legacy, though she in actuality left little of one but in my own heart . . . my one and only love. She was gone that day, and I could do nothing but abandon all of my hopes and dreams and become a mindless soldier of destruction and eternal fighting. My celibacy is a tribute to her. I know it will be hard, tempted at every turn with the women who think they want me, but I will not surrender. I will never surrender.

I came so close to dying. I almost went to her, but they had to save my life. They had to save me, but what use am I? I plod through life like a packhorse, burdening all the petty ideals and weak-willed battles. I don't want it. I don't want to be a nameless soldier of the battlefield forevermore. I want to be with her. I want to be there, yet they will never let me go. They don't understand.

I begged him to kill me. I begged and pleaded and did everything I could think of, but he wouldn't because he believes life is too precious to throw away. He's changed much. He doesn't understand my grief. If she died, I wonder, would he try and follow? I look at the scars on my wrists . . . the blonde saved me just in time, when I no longer had the strength to stop him from running for help. Damn him. Damn him to eternal Hell.

Sometimes, when there is no one to turn to, you must turn to yourself. Fighting numbs me, makes me not feel what I know will only be delayed. It's like an addiction. The high is incredible, and the low can only be stopped with more battle. The peaks keep getting lower and the lows further still, until finally you're below the line no matter what. You can't stop, because you're afraid of the depression that might kill you. You depend on it, like a drug. Then, finally, it no longer matters. You come to this state of being where you plod through life as if it was water vapor, getting by on everything you learned and not on what your conscious tells you is right. Good and bad mutate, yin and yang get distorted until you can't tell light from shadow, shadow from absolute darkness.

And then you tell yourself that there is no true darkness. Even the blackest of space has stars that shine like pinholes in a sheet of black plastic. Consider yourself recovered and ready for the world once again, you throw yourself into the arms of another, a temporary sanctuary. You're not really ready for a new love, a new intrigue and a new dream. You think you are, but exercising a wound only tears it open again. The cycle repeats: you get hurt, you hurt them, you fall back to the low. It is much better just to stop when you're ahead.

My life no longer has merit. It is a chore. Joy isn't an option; it's been erased from the board. Suffering consumes all. That's what Buddha taught. Ironically, that's also what the soldiers are taught. I am like a nameless soldier, fighting to maintain an acceptable state of being when my mind suffers. I have to save myself, and that numbness is the only way.

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