I can hear them coming. I usually can, though. It's rare that they're cunning enough to utilize the element of surprise, but occasionally I am caught off guard. Today is not one of those days.
The encroaching din gives me time to ready my weapons. The difficult part is figuring out what to grab. You have to change out the weapons sometimes, or they get used to it and know how to work around it. But new weapons don't always work the way you hope they will. That's the drawback; it's a guessing game.
The size of the horde that appears makes me sigh. The fight today will not be easy. I see they have some new recruits amongst the veterans.
We have sparred for decades now. You'd think that would make it easier, but it really doesn't. There's always some new trick they've learned. You have to be on your best game all the time. You have to learn new tricks, too. One false move, and this war is over.
Some days, the fight is so long and so tiring that you think you wouldn't mind the war being over, whether it's in your favor or not. Those days are the hardest. You wonder if the needle and thread will hold you together for the next time. You wonder if you have any blood left to bleed, and how your armor isn't twisted bits of metal in a field of mud. You wonder how your bones can hurt so much without disintegrating into powder.
This fight takes so much from you and of you. It can make you hollow- eyes, heart, soul. You wonder if it's even worth fighting anymore. But you persist for some reason, with a strength that seems impossible to possess.
You go into every battle not knowing if it may be the battle where you are finally overwhelmed by the enemy. Losing this war brands you as "selfish" or "cowardly" by those who have never set foot on a battlefield. Even just having a bad day on the battlefield can be cause for others to wield their words of shame at you. As if your scars aren't reminders of your failure.
What a crock of shit.
Yeah, some battles are a relatively easy win.
But some days, all you can hope for is a stalemate.
Some days, a stalemate is a miracle.
