World War 4: Sticks and Stones

Ben: Part Ten

"Why do you have to mock me like this?" "I am not mocking you." There was no way that he wasn't mocking me. He sat next to me as I finally found peace for just a moment, and he decided to tear it away from me. "Why do you have your hand out like that?" "Why does anybody? To shake hands of course!" Every word that he spoke made me less at peace and more confused. He spoke again. "Just sit and watch the people with me like you were doing." He did not seem to me to be in any way trying to be hurtful, and yet everything about this interaction felt designed to tear me apart. "You know that I am going to kill you some day, and it will not be long." "Then why don't you let me enjoy my last moments on this planet." I thought about his offer, and I nodded slightly. We sat in silence. My confusion turned to sorrow. I felt remorse, like I had done evil. I felt like the justifications that I gave myself for everything that I had ever done were falling apart as we sat together. I looked up to feel my father and my Eliza looking down at me with urgency. I said to them through my mind that it was too late for me. It didn't matter whether or  not I wanted to kill Peter anymore, it mattered that I had to. Eliza died in my arms, so that she would not have to witness my actions. She died and I couldn't even believe myself when I would say that I loved her. What if I never did? What if every moment of my life has been a lie. As I watched the kind of love that I saw in this bunker, I just simply could not believe that I loved Eliza. But if it was not love, then what else could it have been? I saw smiling faces, I saw people playing with their children, embracing their spouses. I saw lovers kiss with joy in their hearts, and passion in their souls, and not a knife to be seen. But if I did not kill Peter, Eliza died for nothing. Is it not love to give death a meaning? The existence of Peter killed Eliza, not me. My love, my protective soul killed Eliza, not me. My unfinished fate killed her. I loved her. I had to have loved her. But why then did it not feel like love anymore? "I am a broken man, Peter." "So am I." "I have killed those closest to me." "So have I." "It is too late for me." "No it isn't. Destiny does not understand the hope that exists in this bunker." "She told that hope does not create the base of this bunker." Peter shook his head at this idea. "Then what is love, if it isn't the existence of hope put into another person? Do you know how many people in this bunker have killed in cold blood? Do you know how many people in this place have eaten children? Do you know how many of these people have done evils unimaginable in a normal circumstance? Yet love exists here. There are people in this place who love murderers, thieves, backstabbers, blackmailers, anything. But all of those people believe that their lover can and will do better. This is hope, is it not? And it can only exist because humanity exists. Their love for people who have done evil exists because they believe that the basis of humanity in this time is to be remorseful, is that not a beautiful thing? Love is hope. Love gives hope. It is human, and it is beautiful. I do not know if we are ever going to start a new civilization, but there is reason to try because these people believe that there is reason to hope. Is that not a beautiful thing? So no, you are not too far gone when all of these people are no better than the people that they thought were the enemy. To believe you are too far gone, is already a step to hope. To be remorseful is to exist in a state where you find that your evils are inexcusable, to turn it into hope is to start to believe that those inexcusable actions do not have to define you." 

I sat some more in complete silence. I thought about his words, but my mind couldn't change. It wasn't allowed to change. I thought about Peter's words, then I thought about Eliza. Then I thought again about Peter's words. But every time that I would start to believe his words, I saw that knife slip into Eliza's chest. "Peter, I killed her. I killed Eliza." He looked at me with sadness, but said nothing. That kiss. That final kiss was tired. Eliza was tired because she was scared, and she was tired of being scared because she was in love. She was anguished, and she hated the things that I had done and the things that I planned to do, but she could not stop watching. She could not get up and leave and say that she would never be with me on the road that I was going down, but she did try to stop me. She did say that it was never about Peter for her, but that it was about our future. She did tell me that killing Peter would change nothing. But I never listened. I let her words be white noise for my sleep. I let them be unimportant to the existence of my fate. I let them slip her into silence. I let them tire her until she could speak no more, but she never wanted what I wanted. Her screams in the night that I killed Bill echoed in my head, and the kiss. The final kiss was a kiss of anguish, and exhaustion. She had tried to tell me that I never had to do anything. She tried to tell me that she was right there for me, but I would never listen, so I killed her. And I had to watch again, as Peter looked at me with sad eyes, my own knife kill the one that I thought I loved, but it was never her. It was him. It was Peter.  It was not a romantic love, or the love of a friend, but the love of death. I loved the idea of killing Peter. It was all that I thought about. It was all that I knew. It was in my dreams, my nightmares. It was in my blood. Peter kept sitting next to me, but he was the only one watching the lovers of the place. Instead, I was watching Eliza kiss me for the final time. It was anguish and exhaustion, and I was finally starting to know why. It was the anguish and exhaustion of a lover who was not loved back. Whose love was love was ignored in favor of the love of something else. There was once when I truly loved Eliza. It was when I would do anything for her. When I fought for her, when I sat with her, when I conceived Destiny with her. But it was not then. Not when I killed her. She felt the waning of my love upon her heart, and it exhausted her. And she warned me, and I did not listen, and so she died. It was not my love for her, but the lack that killed her.

In this realization I stood. "I have to kill you, Peter. It is all that I am. My entire life has been spent up to this moment from the day of your massacre thinking about you. Every action, every reaction, every moment. Every death. It has been you Peter. I didn't love Eliza, I loved my fate. I have no choice. It is all that I am. I do not deserve anything more." He urged me to sit again. He didn't say a word. He just urged me to sit. So I did. We looked upon the unfinished tunnel that was being dug in the supposed direction of plant life. We sat for minutes, then an hour. We watched as smiling faces and determined eyes shoveled as much dirt as they could in every moment. "Neither do any of us, yet we don't always get what we deserve." Peter didn't want to die. Even after everything that he did, he believed that he deserved more, that people deserved more. He was the opposite of me, and yet every word he spoke was more compelling than the last. Peter was killing me. He was turning me into something that I couldn't understand. He was taking away the meaning of my life. The love that I held in the reason for my existence. I felt less compelled to complete my task. I felt less in need of making him suffer. I felt less in need of justifying Eliza's death. I felt less sure of if his death even would do so. I was confused and I was lost. For the first time, I was directionless. I had to kill him, I had no choice, but I no longer wanted to. It felt animalistic, like cells in my body were forcing me to do this to survive. But it was right. I thought of the room full of people. The names in blood. The babies on the floor, barely recognizable as human children. The bullet wounds. The deaths of friends. It had to be done. It had to be. For them. To make their lives beyond finally quiet. To let them rest. To recover. To be unafraid. I wanted to feel their hearts upon mine as I got ready to finally complete my task, but I felt nothing. It was almost as if their souls were looking away. It was as if they were afraid. 

Peter. He looked at the tunnel. "We are going to find plant life! We are going to start something new!" I smiled through my pain. I stood again. He smiled back at me, and I left. I went to find the gun that I had started the job with earlier. It was time to finish it. It was time to be nothing more than what I deserved. So I took a step through the love that I had witnessed with Peter, and I turned off my fake smile, and I walked. At one time in my life, this would have a walk of determination, of confidence, of courage. But now, it was a walk of defeat. My fate had defeated me, as it defeated Eliza. I tried to convince myself that Eliza had to die because my fate wasn't going to allow me to listen to her arguments, but I couldn't convince myself of the truth of that thought. It was starting to feel more and more like there was another way. I was nothing more than the enemy. I was evil. I had killed like they had. I had eaten like they had, and now I will seek revenge like they had. It was all that I deserved, so it was what I was going to seek. I finally made my way to the bloodstained floor where I had attempted to fulfill my fate once before. I found the gun that I had used leaning against the wall. I picked it up. I held back tears. I was evil. I was worse than the enemy. I was their enemy. I was about to do to Peter what Peter did to me years ago. How is that justifiable? How is that right? But I kept thinking: "The deaths of mothers. The deaths of children, the gore, the violence the chaos. It was all him. This is what has to be done in their names." So I continued to walk, gun in hand to a foolish Peter who thought that there was a way out of this for me. There wasn't. So I called to him from a distance, and I pulled him away from people and I stood there, simply looking at him for a moment. "Peter, I have to kill you." He just looked sad, and he looked scared, but he looked ready.

But not ready to die.