Disclaimer:
None
of the DC characters belong to me. That’s why they’re the DC characters.
They belong to DC. The characters, I mean.
PG.
No bad words, just depressing
Notes:
Angst
warning. It’s so odd, I’m used to writing funny ‘couldn’t be serious if
I tried’ pieces, but it seems every story I’ve ever written for you guys is
dark...what’s going on here? I know it jumps around, but it’s supposed to be
like that. I fudged on a few facts, Arrowette’s age, for example. And I killed
a few people. See if you can guess who th’ narrator is before I give it away.
Mood
setting Quotes:
“History…you’ll
find…has an excellent way of repeating itself”
--?
“And
both sides say they’re winning, and both sides know they’re losing,
And
neither one knows what they’re fighting for.
There’s
no place to run for cover, so they’re turning on each other,
Cause
there really aint no winners, anymore.
Just
victims…”
--Uncivil
War, Martina McBride
-------
War
is Hell
It’s
been 30 years. Sounds like a long time, doesn’t it? …30 years. I remember
when 35 seemed ancient, but I’ve felt much older than that for so long now.
…30
years…
30
years since a war. “Our Worlds at War” the media deemed it. Nice. Accurate.
Marketable. …Sickening. One of the worst.
But
they want to forget.
The
public didn’t like the war. I don’t blame them. No one did.
But
they want to forget
Forget
it ever happened. So many lives, so many people…forget?
Forget
the brave souls who went to war…and never came home?
An
entire portion of the Nation, Kansas, was wiped out. Gone. So many lives…
They
think, “If we ignore it, it will have never happened.”
…Maybe.
They did a good job of restoring Kansas. Too good. You’d hardly even notice
that 30 years ago it was vaporized.
It
was an unpopular war.
…One
man…he had been one of the lucky ones. He /didn’t/ die in the war. Unlike so
many others…so many of his friends.
He
made it home.
He
had just been shipped in from a spaceport. He landed at a receiving field a few
miles out of town. He was still in uniform. His powers didn’t include flight,
or super speed…and he was tired. The soldier started to walk along the road,
his thumb jutting out. This was a well-used road. Surely…/someone/…would
give this brave man a lift…
A woman stopped; rolled down her window…She had a box of very ripe tomatoes with her. …His breast was once more splattered with red, only this time; it wasn’t blood...
…Welcome home, Soldier…
20
years, the war was ignored. It was taboo, no one talked about it, no one thought
about it. The Nation, the World…shamed itself, the way it treated it’s
surviving soldiers. There was no ‘welcome home’ parade, no monument.
Until
10 years ago, when the world woke up. “This isn’t right.” They said.
“What have we done?” They wanted to make it right.
Suddenly,
the war was everywhere! People were talking about it! And a contest opened up. A
contest to design the memorial. This contest was open to anyone, from
kindergarten up. /Anyone/ could submit a design, and they did. Everyone had an
idea for the best monument. Statues, plaques; the whole nine yards.
A
winner was chosen.
The
designer was a young woman named “Cissie King-Jones” I smiled when I heard
that. The name is familiar to me. I’m sure it is to you, too. At 15 she won
the gold medal for archery in the Summer Olympics. It was a sensational event.
But
she went to war.
She
came home, and like everyone else, was told to forget. Forget she went, forget
what she saw, forget it ever happened. She tried. Tried archery, even went to
the Olympics for a couple more rounds. But she never placed again. Her heart
wasn’t in it. But her design was chosen.
Immediately
a controversy sparked up. I think it’s because she was a woman. For all the
‘equal rights’ that we claim we have here, there still are many people who
don’t believe woman know what they’re talking about. That makes me very sad.
“And
besides” her opposition stated, “It’s ugly! It’s an ugly monument” And
it was. It was a piece of black stone that came jutting up from the earth,
ripping it apart! It was ugly.
“Of
course, it’s ugly” She said. “It was an ugly war. I wanted my monument to
reflect that. I /want/ it to come ripping up from the ground, splitting it
apart, just like it split apart our lives”
“and”
she said “I want to put the name of everyone who died in that war on it.”
It
won.
It’s
an amazing thing, to see it. That monument. People come from all around to see.
It’s unlike any other monument; it’s interactive. You go see the Washington
Monument, ooh look it’s there; Lincoln Memorial, there he is, sitting; Mount
Rushmore, faces, good. Yay. But this memorial…this monument…is different.
You
go, and there are flowers, stuffed into the cracks between the separate slabs of
the wall. There are teddy bears, American flags, everything you can imagine,
leaning against that wall. And it changes every day.
One
time, I stayed to see if this was true: At night, the National Guard comes along
in a truck, and, lovingly, like receiving a gift, picks up everything that has
been left that day, and moves it into a little museum. The museum is a wondrous
thing to see, all sorts of things that have been left at that wall.
I
run my fingers over the names on the wall, looking for familiar ones.
…“Steel”…”Tempest”…”Lobo”…
That
one gets me every time. I can’t believe he died. He was…he was…he was
/Lobo/ for God’s sake! But what really kills me, besides my choice of words,
is /how/ he died. Lobo, the big lone wolf, died protecting us…protecting me. I
called to him…and his answer…would be the last thing he did…
One
time when I was there, someone had laid a red cape with the ‘S’-shield
emblazoned on it up against the wall. It made me cry. A big grownup like me.
Some
of the people who went to war would be my age now, or close to it.
Sometimes…you’ll
see some random guy at the wall, he’ll have a bit of a belly, his hair is
thinning, he’ll be wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. …And he’ll
have his arm up on the wall, and he’ll be leaning on it…and he’ll be
crying. He’s got buddies up there on that wall. His buddies are 18, or
20…they never got any older than that.
I’ve
got a ‘buddy’ on that wall. For the longest time, he /couldn’t/ age. He
was permanently sixteen. But then the ability to grow older was restored to him!
But he’s still sixteen…
…he’ll
/always/ be sixteen…
When
you visit the memorial, your head is filled with all sorts of ‘why’s and
‘if only’s and ‘I never got to’s.
Like…why
me? Why was I so lucky? Why did I come home? There was nothing so special about
me. Some people will argue on that. But in truth, I was no more spectacular than
anyone else up on that wall. Some of those names were full grown heroes. Why
should I have been so lucky, so cursed, as to come home?
‘Oh
my friends my friends forgive me, that I live, and you are gone’…
…to
apologize…
…for
closure…
‘Maybe’
you think ‘if I say what I never said to you I’ll be able to move on, to
heal, to live. Maybe I’ll come to terms with it.” You think.
…I
never got to…
I
never told you…
…Kon…
I
never told you…
…Tim…
…My
name is Tim.
-fin-
