The Children [2014WC]

The Children [2014]

The sky is painted an ominous shade of red and a dull gray as the earth is trampled by the gears of war. The haunting images of death and disarray are coughing up images of apocalyptic horrors and end time fears; no country is without the scourge of battle.

We are being loaded up unto trucks in droves as we are not given any details on our destination, but all of us know that we are soldiers now. The children on board are as young as nine and their mothers and daughters along with them and those who have young are spared.

The journey takes us across war torn cities and towns, the drive and the scenery becomes a slow motion blur as we see the devastation. The bodies litter the streets in a pungent stench of rotting flesh, babies and toddlers left to fend for them selves as they wonder aimlessly. The tears fill my eyes as I could see we have lost our humanity and have gone into barbaric mode.

The tire’s crunch over the remains of the dead and the passengers cringe at the sound of cracking bones, you could feel the heat from the burning buildings. As we approach our destination we could sense this will be our last day on earth alive. The war machines fill the landscape as if this will be the place where the final act is played.

We stop and we are being unloaded and all eyes are drawn to the fight as bullets scream all around us, the children are crying and are not wanting to go as some of the women try comfort and sooth them. Many of the people clutch onto their crucifixes and whisper prayers and some refuse to go all together but are met with stiff penalties and death if they are not willing to serve there country.

We are placed in formation and we are being debriefed on our duties as if we are seasoned veterans of war, as weapons and ammo are being placed in our hands. Thankful they are for our bravery and the service we provide for our country as we are told to march on to the front line. The only thing I could hear is the bullets whistle past and through the many ahead of us, the heat from exploding shells rip apart those unlucky enough to be around the blast radius.

Many of the young and fearful are frozen and are lying against the trenches with glazed look in their eyes. Again what looks like a sergeant or some other person in charge is debriefing all of us in the trench and looks like it’s all the way down to the other side as far as I could see. We are being told the shells will stop firing and we have to rush the enemy with just the weapons in our hands. The shelling stops and you could hear the breaths of fear and the stress in the children’s cries.

The war cries are heard from the enemy and a mighty cry rumbles from the trench as the soldiers make their way out and head for the battle. I could see the children running and stumbling toward their certain doom, closer and closer we close the gap between us and the enemy. Suddenly the adults slow down as we get closer but the children keep going until it’s only the children running towards each other. They come face to face and stop, look at each other and drop their weapons and hug each other as if they had planned it ahead of time. Amazed we look at each other and wonder what we are doing, look at each other and we too drop are weapons.

I stood in awe as every person on that field had dropped their weapons and fell to their knees and not knowing what power had stopped what surely would have been a blood bath. The leaders as well are astonished at what they see and are wondering what they should do, if no one wants to fight than what good is war if they have no soldiers. I don’t know what happened that day and I still don’t but something opened our eyes to the slaughter of our brothers and sisters, mothers and daughter and fathers and sons. In the eyes of those who love and care are among them, those who learn to forgive if they done you wrong and it’s in those we find salvation and peace, those are the eyes of children.

reply to post by WarriorOfLight96


In the eyes of children, indeed.......good job.

reply to post by MountainLaurel


Thank you for reading and I thank you for the kind words, indeed we can learn a lot from children. Have a good one mountain. Peace