EXTRACT START FROM I AM BASTARD I AM WAR
War Talk: Father and Son The father with a son leaves the meeting knowing his boy, his 19-year old son will be one of those sent into war for a possible death. His heart is heavy and is filled with fear of losing his child. Blood lost is bad enough yet when the blood of your child is to be spilt, his world feels like its ending I walk away from the meeting with my master only to sit on the stairway to cry pain filled tears with thoughts of oncoming rivers of blood to be poured into the ground. My boy is a man yet is a boy to me 19 years of age and he is my child He is a man of youthful influence I know he will be going into the front line where victory is counted in the death of a man They kill 1000, we kill 2000, they kill 2000, we kill 5000, bombs, bullets guns and snipers It’s all a bloody sickening mess My son this is my note to you from my slowing heart This is father, your old father The moment, the second, the minute, the day you arrived into this world, I can see and hear and smell you in my arms right this moment as if it is happening all over again If I lose you to war I shall age a thousand years in a moment, I shall surrender my breath to death. I cannot sit and watch you go my son yet I might just have to do that. I beg you stay here, hide, flight, please don’t run to death for the glory of words that make no sense Why, why, why, should you die for the greed of a nation run by a man that is driven by not the lust for power and rightness, but the blood and the lust for more itself? My son, you will be persuaded, manipulated and fed the daily propaganda and lies of how this small nation so far away is to become our greatest ever threat to yours to our survival You’ll be told how they will try and destroy our liberties, our way of life yet the truth shall be they are either defenders whist under attack Am I a father that is to lie to his own son? My truth is my love for you; you are my baby, my boy, my son and today a man in his youth from the seed of my own life They lie the lies of old lies Son, you listen to me, listen to me, listen to me and stay away from the men of old. They lie and cheat and persuade but not for liberty or honor this is something they do for the glory of nothing that can never last the span of time They are men of the moment never of the future. They ignore history, it’s all been run before, and the end is always the same. There is no victory here for any man This is nothing new my son, no new thing comes from war and no glory can be found in a violent death. You are defending nothing and shall be persuaded to be an ethical invader into other worlds to stop the spread of evil This is a lie; this isn’t true yet my fear is you will be taken away with your youth and all the foolishness that travels in the life of a young man Son I adore every hair upon your head, please stay at home with us and save your life from certain death Father I read your letter Father I read the letter from my leader I heard you I heard him I love you I love my country I have to fight for my country and fight for the greater good. Surely our leaders know more than we do father? I don’t want to die, I don’t want to be injured, I don’t want my life to be a wasteful life yet for the glory and honor and for my faith I shall do as my country has asked me. My life is a glorious life yet my death can be an even more glorious death Son your words are short as your years are short. Youthful thoughts are a deception without experience. I beg of you this is a pathway to hell with an outcome of no good, will you drink tea with me and talk words of peace Father my mind is decided …
END OF EXTRACT FROM I AM BASTARD I AM WAR Deaths by War and Oppression during the 20th Century: 203 million REF: Matthew White, Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century, 2010 The Year 2014 Countries involved in War 60 Groups involved in War 531 The Year 2014 As I write Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Egypt, Libya, Israel and Gaza burn themselves to the ground in hate, revenge and carnage. Tribe against tribe, nation against nation. It’s a bloody sickening mess. This is a World on the edge, it feels like a turning point, a tipping point. It feels like the end of something, I’m not sure what but it feels like an end.