Back in December my family and I visited a park in Danville, Virginia while we were celebrating my cousin's college graduation. At this park, they had a war memorial like the Vietnam War Wall Memorial in Washington, DC. On this wall, they had all the soldiers who had died from the American Revolution to the War on Terror from that area. What struck me the most was the Civil War section which had numerous men who had died with the same last name. Thus, this flash fiction piece was inspired.
Absolutely Nothing
War is not civil. A nation destroys
itself because of its ideologies. People suffer while politicians talk. They
call this war “civil,” but it divides us. It’s us or them, Dad says. Said. He’s
no longer with us. Neither are my two older brothers, Uncle Joe, and my three
cousins. This war wipes out families’ names. Men die. Even those who don’t
perish on the battlefield succumb to disease and infection.
Grandfather and my little brother Frankie
are all the menfolk we have left. One is too old, the other too young. For now.
Cannons boom and gunshots echo even all the way in town. They say the South
will fall. They say the North will. I say we all have fallen.
So much death and destruction. I
have no more tears to shed. I’m all cried out.
Why can’t they realize war solves
nothing? Our differences make us unique, separate us from each other. Nothing
wrong with being unusual, even though they believe it is. Our oddities are
nothing without what makes us stronger as a people, a nation divided.
