Choice of Slaughter

He looked back at me.  There was pain in his face.  Even he had to face the cold hard truth, just as I had to.  No other option.  No other way.

The ashes rained down and settled softly upon the ground like new fallen snow.  It was almost beautiful, but when you walked it didn't have that lovely new snow crunch, and the smell...you were instantly reminded what the reality was.  Fire, destruction, death...everything so far from beauty.  I wasn't even sure I knew what beauty was anymore. 

"Addie, look alive," said Dave quietly pointing towards a building off in the distance.

"What do you reckon is in there?"  I asked him, knowing what the answer was.

"Let's check it out, keep on your toes."

We moved slowly and cautiously towards the run down barn, rifles aimed at the ready...for anything.  As we got closer we began to hear the noises.  The raspy, heavy breathing.  The shambling of feet.  Then the smell of rot and decay began floating out towards us.  Sickening.  Saddening.  I knew what we were about to see.  It was all I could do to hold back the tears.  So many people.  So many innocent lives ruined, corrupted, destroyed.  All in a single night.

We approached the door, one of us on each side.  Dave looked at me, and I looked back.  Our eyes met.  He nodded and we both rushed in.  It was over quickly.  A few ringing gunshots, a couple of shrieks and cries, and it was done.  Dave went outside to radio HQ a status report.  I was glued where I was.  I had killed so many.  So many before.  But this was...different.  It was a family.  Or so it seemed.  What appeared to be a mother and father...and a child.  A small, weak child, couldn't have been more than six or seven years old.  I couldn't hold it in.  A single tear rolled down my cheek and I choked slightly as I began to sob. 

"Addie, let's roll."

"I just need a minute, Dave." 

He nodded and walked out. 

This was it.  All the training, the boot camp, even the two deployments...none of them were close to this.  This was in her own town.  Her own town, ravaged by by a chemical attack.  It had made everyone sick.  It had made them rabid.  So her she was, with Dave, and the other squads hunting them down and slaughtering them.  They didn't have a choice. 

There was no other choice...

True Story

Once I was wearing a coat and I punched a goat in the throat on a boat that was afloat in the middle of a moat where a beautiful maiden wrote a beautiful note that described a coyote that didn't want to vote because he was missing the antidote to the poison that was made of an oat that everyone had once seen swimming in the local lake.

Passage For The Deaf

Who cannot hear what is being spoken with words not meant for our ears
Yet time and time again our thoughts have swayed towards the later years
Passage for the deaf and no realizations for the weak
Passing from time to time they crawl, they find, they seek
Although we cannot hear your dying words
Although we do not see your frantic fears
We pass through this life mourning the dead
When the dead are those truly set free

So my heart aches as the anvil is hammered yet again
Shaping of the people they know nothing about
And here we are, led by children with foolish hearts and greedy minds
But we're forced to pay homage and pay our respects
We have no passage, not without a sacrifice
No one is here to save us and we are just patiently waiting, waiting for the next mistake
That's all we can do, and all we can feel, and all we can hear with deaf ears
Time and time again our minds have been broken, countless times past, present, future years