Silence

[Ichi-Ban-San]

The introduction to the story that im writing. Enjoy!

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First there was civilisation.
Then there was tension.
Then there was war.
For longer than anyone could possibly remember, villages, towns, cities, all lived in their own little governed worlds. Devoid of any outside communication.

Where there had once been society, there was nothing.
Wastelands, wrecked vehicles, abandoned buildings and corpses.
Corpses of people who had once been part of the great dominate west.
Corpses of people who didn’t want war, didn’t want conflict and didn’t want change.
No cares, only basic responsibilities.
Sleep, awake, go to work, have lunch, abuse discount, go home, get drunk, sleep again.
Same shit, many different days.
These people didn’t care about politics or world affairs.
Who to vote for? Close your eyes and guess.
That party has blue banners - blue is my favourite colour.
It won't affect me, I don’t matter.
As long as I sell that person this tie, nothing else matters.
Nothing.
Today we went to war.
Conflict in the east.
People with different opinions.
Another busload of bystanders dies.
To think we never saw it coming.
We must have been blind.
One day they put up sirens, the early warning system. Designed to warn us in advance that we are all going to die.
After the city was flattened, the siren kept on warning us of the imminent doom.
As we lay on the ground, our bodies still too hot to touch, we reflected.
We reflected on how we could've done something.
How we could have resolved the matter.
Now we can decompose in peace, safe in the knowledge that we did our best to prevent it.
The knowledge that the choice of war was made for us with the best of intentions.
The worst things imaginable were done with the best intentions.
The craving for power has melted my eyeballs from their sockets.
The greed has blinded me.

Several piles of scattered stone, glass, wood and ash. This was suburbia. The dwelling places of the many hundreds of people who didn’t care if we went to war or not.
They were at dinner, they were watching television and over there they were making out in the den while the kids parents are at a movie.
When the sirens began their mono-toned death requiem, we prayed. To who? To the god who allowed things to get this bad? The god who watched as his finest creation destroyed one another with the pressing of buttons?
We prayed that it would be quick. We were thankful that we would die together, safe and warm in our houses with all that we worked hard for hanging on the walls, sitting in the living room, on the mantle piece, in all the rooms in our house and in the garden.
We reflected on our childhood, our upbringings.
A pile of newspapers out for recycling, bearing news headlines of the inevitable.
The requiem rang out, signalling the end of the line. This was it. The last few minutes of our short pointless days of work and play.
When your time is in sight, you really stop and think.
You think of what you could have done.
You think about the things that you wanted to do before you went.
Your memories are silent ones, over dubbed with the requiem.
Then it comes.
The noise is deafening.
The sight is blinding.
Death is quick.
Painless.
The wait is over.

Over there, children were playing.
Unaware of what was to come.
A chassis of a school bus rattles in the brisk wind.
On its way to drop future citizens at their dwelling places.
It never made it.
The requiem began as it pulled away from the kerb.
The driver switches on the microphone.
Please stay seated and calm.
Don’t despair.
It will all be over soon.
You can rest after your weary day.
People watched as it fell.
They looked away, not that it mattered.
Will it help if I crouch in a ball?
If it helps you, do it.
We will end up the same as it is.
Come round my house, quickly.
I want to die in your arms.
It seems to take so long to happen.
Your life flashes before you.

Everything is gone.
What remained untouched is in morning.
It isn't safe to walk there.
Does it matter?
What is there to stay healthy for?
We are the unlucky ones.
We survived the blast.
We total only four digits.
We were around to hear the requiem continue its mournful tune.
Don’t touch them.
The seats of cars have strange shapes fused to them.
It isn't even worth thinking about it.
We survived but for what?
What do we do?
Where do we go?
Who is going to take care of us now…?


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