Of Angels who Cry

The tales of combat are long told as the legends and lore we hear to the war stories that fascinate us as children. They teach us honor integrity values and the difference between right and wrong through these stories. Yet when the time comes not one of us honors our knowledge, not one of us has the integrity to do what’s right than to survive and no one differentiates between the right and the wrong when the sword is at his own neck.

In a sandy battlefield a lone soldier stood, watching the enemy through his scope wondering where his comrades were. The very same comrades who were supposed to have arrived here two hours ago, the comrades who were supposed to back him up, who were supposed to have given him a cold drink and a soft bed by now. Where were they? The enemy was getting closer and they were nowhere in sight. The land was getting harsher and the sun was in his eyes, the wind was blowing into his face and the sand was getting into his eyes and in that he didn’t hear any sound save that of his own breathing. Not even the sound of the two people who crawled behind him and knocked him out cold.

Where was he? What was the time? Who were the people who snatched him? All these questions were buzzing in his mind along with a very bad head splitting headache. A couple of bulbs lit the room brightly and brought every detail into sharp focus as his eyes regained focus. He saw one door and walls of concrete informing his that escape was almost a physical impossibility. He was tied to a chair both arms and legs locked back and inter connected. The wait was long. He had no idea how long he was left that way. No sense of day and night, minutes nor hours. He began wondering after a while if anyone missed him. If his comrades who said they would back him up had arrived to find him one and thought he deserted.. He wondered if the thought of him being abducted had even crossed their mind. He wondered if his comrades might talk the worst of him for h=not being there. He wondered if there would even be an attempt to find out what happened to him. He wondered how his family would feel when they were informed that their son had deserted. How society would treat them. Then an even more horrifying thought crossed his mind. What if his comrades couldn’t come because they were dead. What if they had been killed by the very men who they were trying to kill? Or rather what if his comrades were to die while searching from him after they realized that he had been taken? Would their deaths be on hands, would their lives be lost because of him? What would happen to their families? Where is all this going to end? We were only trying to protect the city behind us that contained our nearest and dearest. What would happen if all of them fell chasing just after him? Or what if they already had perished? The city would be in chaos, everyone in it in mortal danger if not headed for something worse. His dearest and the younger children would be put through horrors not even describable. The elders killed and the rest put to hard work and shot later. This was to live. They were hunting us down and killing us just because they thought they were superior and we didn’t follow their way of thought? Whatever happened to freedom? We took up arms so that we could protect our people and our homes. We wanted to be the guardian angels that protected them but now because of our resistance they would face even more horrors at the hands of their tormenters should we fail and I have filed. I have failed to protect the very people I swore to protect and I will either have failed miserably or be assumed to be a coward and be disgraced. Either way I have failed or I am no longer a guardian angel but a man who is just a coward waiting for what is to come.

The guard who was watching the soldier from the other side of the door notices that the soldier was crying and goes to inform his superior that the prisoner is ready for interrogation and that all the conditions that he was ordered to monitor have been met.