Time: When great armies roamed the earth - mostly with swords and spears as weapons.
Setting for this story: A broad, flat plain just beyond a mountain pass. This pass was the favored route for the armies of two great local empires as they would seek to attack the other or would beat a hasty retreat should that attack fail.
The third party: The local inhabitants of the broad, flat plain were members of an informal union of small clans that had lived in peace for centuries. However, whenever either of the mighty armies was spotted in the distance, the local clans withdrew to secret hideouts in the mountains. They would watch, safely from a distance, while these foreign soldiers fought each other or were en route to attack their glorious neighbor. The foreigners never even thought to bother the locals and had never lingered for long.
After one particularly fierce and undecisive battle
Two women in their early twenties - childhood friends - had been watching the two great armies locked in mortal combat for hours. These friends were so unattractive, or so they thought, no man would ever want to marry either of them. While lying on their bellies high up on a ledge, they thought it a shame that so many fine, strong, and brave men were killing each other far below. Using strength that could better be used loving a woman and raising a family.
The battle had started at dawn - the clash of swords and the yelling of aroused males had awoken these women. So they worked their way to this ledge and watched, transfixed, as tens of thousands of warriors desperately hacked at each other. Having grown up in a thinly populated area, they were overwhelmed at the sheer mass of humanity writhing and contorting - the group wearing red meshing with the group wearing blue.
Some of the reds were getting redder, and some of the blues were becoming purple.
The sun rose higher in the sky. The day grew hotter. The numbers of the fallen grew more numerous as the din of enraged voices subsided.
As the sun set, both armies broke contact and headed home. Yet the two childhood friends remained - looking wistfully at the fallen bodies left behind. Most were dead - but not all.
The moon was huge in the sky and brilliant that night. They saw glints of moonlight flashing off armor as the wounded moved about imperceptibly below. A sound rose up from the field of death - the moaning of the dying. Which turned into occasional screams as wolves worked their way among the broken bodies.
The sun rose, waking the two women who had dozed off. The wolves were gone, and one had a sudden urge. She turned to her companion and said, "Let's go - I want to see their faces." And so they both descended. Years later, as these two would speak of this day, neither could remember which had thought to seek a husband among the fallen.
Each found a severely wounded man and claimed him - one man from each of the two opposing armies. Their friends thought they were mad, but helped carry the barely living enemies to the village.
Aftermath and why?
These two men recovered, though had been kept separate from each other for a while. They had been enemies, after all. But each pulled through after having been heroically tended by their future wives, who they had not seen as being unattractive at all. But as angels, instead. And each listened to his angel as she begged him to embrace not only the life of the village but that of his foe - the husband of her best friend. Who, as time and shared experiences passed, had become his best friend.
I paint this brief scene in honor of all those unknown and anonymous soldiers of antiquity who had fallen, only to be abandoned by their comrades and left to the wolves. Great literature and poetry of the past sing of the virtues of conquering heroes. I wonder if any works had ever been composed about two men, left for dead, who found love in the attentions of two plain and dedicated women.
Steven Searle for U.S. President in 2012
Founder of the Independent Contractors’ Party
"As the wheels of war turn, sometimes it takes a bold move by the innocent to achieve a victory unattainable by the controllers of empires. War is a terrible thing" - Steve.
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