That Rekindling Evening

The sun was about to hide itself behind those majestic humongous mountains as it spread its orange aura throughout the village in the valley.

The serene environment of the village was disturbed by the howling wind and the chopper that landed nearby.

A lean tall soldier, with firm build and a fully loaded AK 47, along with his team headed towards the small village where only thatched muddy houses could be seen. He kicked the old mud door of the first house and started firing blindly. He could hear the cries of a woman and a few children which then subsided and when the dust and the smoke cleared, all he saw was dead bodies of a woman and two children in her lap, the mother’s body lying over her children’s body with her hand wrapped around the small cadavers protectively.

The soldier looked around. Good. He remembered what their colonel had said at the end of the meeting just before they had started this attack.

‘Remember, these people are the reason why today so many of our countrymen, our brothers and sisters roam around orphan, widowed or damaged and injured. We are here to avenge them. Avenge them all.’

This gave him the strength to move over that grueling situation. From the distance he could hear the rattling sounds of machine guns being fired and distant and the feeble cries of people.

Quickly he shifted over his focus to the task in hand- The red, muddy, shapeless house at the far end of the street, reclusive from rest of the village.

The soldier ran with his AK-47 and took position outside the house. The door was made of animal fodder bound together and just enough to cover what was supposed to be the entrance of the shapeless house. He could hear no commotions from inside.

Very slowly and cautiously he moved towards the entrance. With his fingers on the trigger, he swiftly pushed aside the heap of bush and cried, “Hands up”.

It took him few seconds to adjust to the darkness, while he flinched at the strong stinging smell. Slowly, figures started to take shape from the faint light coming from the door way. He could make a silhouette of an old man, with long dirty white beard, and tattered clothes, sitting near a stove, stirring a container full of what he figured was oats and water.

“Hands up”, he repeated again, this time voraciously. But the man didn’t move.

Instead, he slowly tilted his head towards the soldier, and gave him a warm smile.

The smile didn’t seem to be like any he had ever seen. Whenever he met people back in his, now destroyed, homeland; it felt quite normal, and fake, lacking empathy or any genuine feelings. But this smile was something different. It felt so warm, so soothing and so welcoming, that for once the soldier’s shoulder slacked and he found himself in a strange eerie relaxing feeling.

But suddenly he regained his conscience and again took guard.

He wanted to shoot the man, straight in the head. He had his position and an advantage over his target. But somehow, that smile vexed him, and forbade his hands from pressing the trigger.

The eyes of the old man bore into the soldier’s. He felt that the eyes of the old man read him, he felt like he was like an open book which the old man could easily read.

He took off his eyes over the man. He couldn’t contain himself from asking, “What makes you smile? Don’t you see, I have a gun in my hand?”

 The old man continued to smile. This irked the soldier.

He again said, in a more threatening tone, “I can easily kill you anytime.”

The old man’s smile widened and he opened his mouth. The lips looked all black and the white dirty moustaches visible.

He spoke in a soothing hoarse voice, “If you wanted to do that, you’d have done that already.”

The soldier was taken aback. The old man looked as calm as a cradled child in Dreamland slumber and his voice didn’t show any sign of fear. The soldier wasn’t used to this.

“But I mean to kill you.” The soldier said. He wanted to sound dangerous but all he could hear was a whimper in his tone. “Your people killed our families, destroyed our homes, made us orphaned and poor. I want to kill you for that.”

“If killing me helps you avenge the death of those people, then go ahead, pull that trigger, dig that bullet in my head.” The old man said calmly.

The soldier stood still, unable to move. His arms felt numb and suddenly the gun felt so heavy on his shoulders.

“Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die and see his loved ones in pain.” The old man said gravely. “If you think that killing us would end the war, you are being fooled, for only the dead see the end of the war. For those who live thereafter, each day is a new war.”

“The old men are clever. They sit there, safely and instruct the others what to do. You are nothing but a puppet in their hands. If one of their puppets gets damaged, it doesn’t affect them. They have many other such dolls to replace the damaged one. And in the end, they collect all the war glories while you are left there, damaged and discarded.”

The soldier suddenly felt an urge to ask the man to stop speaking, for the image of his dead mother started floating in his eyes. This made him weak, and he hated that.

“But your government ordered to kill us, your country is responsible for the death of my mother, my family.” The soldier shivered in rage.

“My country?” the old man chuckled. “Which country and which government of mine are you talking about? That government, those so-called elite people, who spent millions of dollars to wage a war against a country to give them freedom and liberty, and uplift the lives of those people while their own people are withering and starving to death?” the old man, for the first time looked aggressive and restless. “Which country of mine are you talking about? That country which divides you on basis of your caste, religion and sex and suppresses the voices of the minorities.”

“No, my son, this was never the country I was born in. I lived in a country where people respected each other, helped each other, protected the nature and lived in harmony. That, my child, was my country. Not this.”

The soldier shifted uncomfortably. In the silence, he could hear the distant rattling of guns and battle cries of other soldiers.

The soldier looked around. On the wall he saw a framed picture of a young woman. The photo was now covered in dirt as if it hadn’t been touched for so many years.

“Is that photo of your wife?,” he asked.

The old man smiled.

“No, I am not married. That is the photo of the woman I loved.” The old man sighed.

The soldier sensed the agony in his voice. “Was she married off to someone else?”

“No. The beliefs of our society didn’t allow us to be married. When her family members found out about our love, they killed her. That was five decades back.”

The soldier was stunned.

“Ho-wh.. And after all this time, you didn’t find anyone else?” The soldier asked.

The old man snickered.

“My love for her was not like the ice-cream in the sun. It won’t ever melt away.” The old man sighed. “We were two perfectly matching pieces, just different puzzles.”

“But the youth today, makes me sad. Love has lost its meaning over the time. Tell me young man,” the old man turned towards the soldier. “What is love, according to you.”

The soldier was taken aback by this sudden question.

“Err.. love is when you like somebody. You find them beautiful. You are addicted to them and everything about them seems as beautiful as the person itself.” The soldier replied, trying to be diplomatic as the old man.

The old man merrily laughed.

“Exactly, that is the problem I was talking about. Today love is just seen from the outside. But my child, love is when your heart sees what your eyes fail to see, when you see all the flaws in that person yet you embrace them.”

“Everyone can develop feelings for someone. But not all feelings are of love. Most of them are mere infatuations. True love is when you go through the hard trials of trust and sacrifice and still you wake up every morning falling in love all over again, it is a condition in which happiness of another person is essential to your own.”

The soldier felt enchanted; he felt enraptured in the wise words of the old man. He felt like a child who was getting his curiosity satisfied. He could hear other soldiers returning but he couldn’t move. He had to kill this old man, he was his enemy. He was in position with his fingers on the trigger, yet his fingers didn’t respond to him.

“But my child”, continued the old man. “In pursuit of finding that love, never stop enjoying life because life is just a collection of everyday.”

The soldier frowned. “But isn’t it true that love completes a life. So shouldn’t I go and try to find love first. After all, you only live once?”

The old man nodded. “You only live once? False. You live every day. You just die once. Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. Yet it is too ironic to fully understand. It takes war to value peace, it takes violence to appreciate harmony, it takes death to understand life.”

“Remember- the most important thing in life is to live it.”

The soldier’s concentration was deterred by the rhythmic approaching footsteps. That was when it dawned on him. The mere thought terrorized him. He realized that when they find him in here and this man alive, they’d not kill the man, but capture him and torture him to their heart’s content.

No! I can’t let this happen. He doesn’t deserve it.

The footsteps grew louder. He could hear his name being called by his colleagues. They were right outside.

“He’s your enemy. Hand him to them.” Said the brain.

“You know what they’ll do to him when they get him.” Reminded the heart.

“But he deserves it.” Said the brain.

“Really? Is he the reason for the war or is this old man the solution to it? Will handing him over help you get back your dead mother or your gone love?” asked the heart.

*Bang*

The shaggy old body, covered with blood, rested over the wall. The welcoming eyes wide open and that smile, that warm smile still playing on the lips.