A Journey Of Death

War vs Death

"... What is this."

"War."

"I do not understand."

"War needs no understanding. It is constant, separated, from such necessities. War is a law unto itself."

"Then why am I here?"

"What brings you here?"

"Death..."

"Then war leads to death."

"... Does that mean that death will lead to war? That all will war? When I have seen life without it."

"There are many wars. Those that are willing and those that are unwilling. Wars that are fought openly and others in shadows that twist and pull, guiding others into its grasp, laying the foundations for its future. It is constant and ever expanding, laying seeds where none see them, tending to them like its own virulent child."

'War' turned to me here, his gaze heavy, grizzled, looking for something I could not acknowledge.

"War is everywhere."

Writing this now, I recall the differences between 'us'.

'War' was different to 'love,' as I am different to 'him.'

Where 'love' sought to connect deeper, to question the influence of events, to see things in the positive, 'War' only saw the suffering. He suffered the torment of watching an unending battle spiral and grow, spreading throughout time as all he witnessed became ash. In his own dry words...

"...War. Never. Ends."

"Then why do they war, If war cannot end? What can be earnt by fighting, if the only result leads to me... to death."

"I have no need of that answer. But I will show you war, let us see who prevails until the end."

You might assume that me and 'War,' were frequent companions on the others journey, but I can in all honesty tell you that we rarely met. 'War' believed that it is because war itself overshadows death, grasping onto the lives that it took and smothering them with its own intent, to spread its influence.

I see differently.

Whilst lives perish in war, it is but a small death, inconsequential to the death that should have been their right. A full death of their own meaning... I suppose, in some ways, 'War' was correct. Their deaths become meaningless, forgotten because of the very war they died for. What is a victory in war if the lives earned to achieve it cannot be cherished, or remembered by those who do not care for the deaths of war.

It is sad to think that my namesake, is worthless, compared to such ideals.

"Tell me, how much death have you seen?"

"I have seen the first of deaths. The slow prolonged death. And the one that haunts, agonising, lingering, never taking, only waiting."

"I did not ask to learn what type of death, I asked how much."

"..."

I had no response to 'War' at this time, it was not my answer he was looking for.

"Have you seen it piled high, the desecration as life bleeds away, numbers dwindling, fading as death envelopes all like a plague, spreading. Spreading just like war."

"Are you implying that we are the same?"

"No... Follow, and I will show you of what I know."

And so we descended, me and 'War.'