The Wiekts HART

- An End -

Right after that word came out from his mouth Hart left his father's house. Without a single glance back, he marched on towards the post to list his name as one of the soldiers in the King's army. He felt betrayed by his father. Hurt and disappointment clouded his usually clear mind. Now that he could finally be honest with himself, he really didn't want to die this pointless death. He was not a coward. No. He would gladly join his King into battle if there was even a slim chance of winning it. But this battle was nothing of the sort. This was one of the pointless battles that could be avoided if only the King was not too adamant to avoid diplomatic measures. This would not be a battle. This would turn out to be a slaughterhouse. Full of massacred bodies with no real reason to fight. Pointless. Everything was pointless. And was it so wrong for him to want to avoid such a pointless battle? Was it so wrong for him to want a future with his wife and children?

He was hoping that he could explain these reasons to his father in order for him to change his mind. Hart really believed that even though his father was a very disciplined and tough man, he would still value his son's life more than a silly battle. He believed that when he presented his father the reasonable reasons, his father would agree with him. What a fool! Hart mentally kick himself. He just signed his death pact with the devil himself. Again, that feeling of extreme betrayal and hurt came over him. He felt the telltale prick in his eyes. He stopped walking and swallowed the same lump that was forming on his throat since this morning. Gosh. It was still morning. Late morning, but still. It hadn't been hours since he left his home this morning to go to work, yet it felt like a lifetime for him.

He turned into a quiet alley before he reached the road that would lead him to the post. He couldn't stand it anymore. He felt broken and hurt. Pain. He couldn't feel anything else. So this was how it felt like. To be sold by one's own father. To be cast aside. And that wasn't even the worst thing that his father had done to him. No. That was a small matter. What hurt the most was that his father thought of what other people thought of him more that his own son's life. That was what hurt the most. He clutched his heart. It was as if there was a hole being dug on the place where his heart was. His father casted him away because he was afraid of what people would think of him if he didn't. It hurt.

He cried then. He cried his heart out. He muffled it though. Years of beatings from his beloved father taught him to never cry aloud. He remembered each and every strike that he received every time he did something wrong when he was little. If he cried, no, when he cried, his father just hit him harder and harder. He was only five. Now, even after all these years, he still remembered this lesson.

"Real men don't cry!" His father would say each time he beat little Hart.

"Are you a boy or a girl?!" His father would ask when little Hart cried harder because the beatings were getting harder.

He would beg for his father to stop. Nothing happened. He tried begging again.Groveling, clutching his father's leg, crying his heart out. Nothing happened. It just got harder. The tighter he clutched, the harder his father beat him. It would go on until finally his father thought that he had learned his lesson. Then, he would stop. At that time, little Hart was a whimpering mess on the ground. Then his mother would patch him up. Gave him a hot bath, trying desperately to stop his crying, soothed him so that his father would not hear the crying and felt the need to go back to give him punishments.

Now, sitting on the dirty road in the middle of a small and quiet alley, a twenty two year old Hart was trying desperately to muffle his cries too. But he couldn't. His father had just given him the hardest and the most painful blow he had ever received in his life.

***

His trip towards the post to enlist himself was a blur afterwards. He was walking aimlessly. Even the process of giving his name to the officer wasn't something that he could remember doing. He just gave the officer anything that he needed to know.