Oblivion

This literary corner piece has been written by Jainam Kumar (B.A. LL.B. Batch of 2029). The illustration is by Lalhlupuii Hlawndo (B.A. LL.B. Batch of 2029).

[Trigger Warning: This piece contains graphic depictions of war, violence, execution, systemic oppression, and psychological trauma. Themes of death, suffering, and loss are heavily present. Reader discretion is advised.]

The city is alive and full of cheer, the streets are flooded with people shouting and reveling.

Another lamb is about to be slaughtered for the “greater good”.

The War has been going on for decades at this point; everyone knew its name, during the initial years of the carnage, but now all anyone knows is that it will never end. Its heralding was a matter of great pride for the people, the promises of plunder and glory drew forth legions of youths and other fortune-seekers.

But killing is not as easy as the innocent believe it to be, waging war is not as simple a process as they would have you believe, and returning home alive is not as common an occurrence as it is depicted to be.

Soon enough, instead of the spoils of war and the tales of victory that they had anticipated,

the only things that returned were the broken and violated corpses of their children, the once impeccable uniforms torn and ripped, the youthful features gashed, the bones and organs twisted and ruptured in ways that shouldn’t be humanly possible. Those who make it back alive wear many of the same wounds as their fallen brethren, in addition to which they are cursed with another feature that further connects them to the departed.

Their eyes. Those damned eyes. Those bloodshot, bulging, always staring eyes. Those dead and lightless eyes. Looking from the eyes of a corpse to the eyes of its former comrade sitting right next to it, one is hard-pressed to distinguish the corpse from the still living.

---

The prisoner is a man, probably in his 30s.

The man’s face is bruised and broken and his pitiful clothing is nothing but scraps and rags. His face showed the disposition of being venerable once, but now it is scarred beyond recognition, a closer inspection reveals that he wears the same haunted eyes of the soldiers.

The man has lost his family, land, home, titles, everything. The only thing that he still owns is his name and his name is Robert Marsh.

Today is the greatest day of his life. Today, Robert will die.

The crowd outside bays for the blood of the traitors, and the hangman’s noose flutters sensually in the crisp morning air as if inviting its lovers for one final embrace.

Robert will be the first to die, though he is by no means the last, there is a whole line of necks waiting to be tangled in the noose. Their crimes are trivial, they are just lambs for slaughter.

Robert is being led to the noose; His guard is a young man barely out of his teenage. There is a glint of pride in the guard’s eyes, along with nervousness and apprehension. The man has been taught to hate his people's enemies, and the one he is leading right now is the worst enemy of them all.

A traitor. A deserter. A coward.

As they reach the area designated for the execution, the hooting and hollering of the blood-crazed crowd grows louder and louder.

The voices are mostly shrill and loud-pitched. Many of the men-folk are gone, their carcasses either rotting in some field leagues away from home or they are lying in some filthy corner, staring into the abyss with those god-forsaken eyes. The women have come out in droves, their minds and sanity being held together by a precious few strands.

A war is going on, and the men have been offered up for the meat grinder, but what about the women and the children? They must pay their dues too.

In the plains right outside the city, there once was an idyllic paradise, all green and colorful and the people would go there to forget their sorrows. A factory now resides in that place.

To describe it in human terms is a daunting task, for even though it has been constructed by human hands, for fulfilling the varied demands of the war, there is nothing humane, in either its appearance or its functioning. It is massive, impossibly massive, with several rows of chimneys pumping out noxious fumes and large windows that leer evilly at the city in the distance.

Everyday, all capable hands in the city, whether women or children are forced to go inside at the crack of dawn and not allowed to come outside until late at night. Barely given any rations, given just enough to live and work another day.

No one who comes outside ever mentions what goes on in there, though at regular intervals inhumane screams can be heard coming from there and it is not uncommon for people to come out with entire limbs missing. Sometimes a maiden or two disappear altogether.

All of this. The War, the never-ending war. The war which has eradicated entire bloodlines out of existence, broken countless families, and turned a once prosperous nation into a feasting ground for vultures and other vermin.

The Factory, the eternally churning factory. The factory, which has reduced once-civilized citizens into a squabbling pack of rats, with all laws and morals thrown aside as they all fight desperately for each morsel of food. All of this has been brought forth and carried out with the help and support of the people, first willing and then later coerced.

Now both of these…these atrocities, these crimes against nature and humanity, have turned against their masters. They demand regular sacrifice and willingly it is provided to them, not satiated by offerings of gold, money, or other precious resources.

Some Gods are only appeased by blood.

Robert stares at the crowd, his dead eyes showing the slightest hint of disdain and…. pity. The guard pushes him up the stairs of the gallows, towards the noose. “I know that you wish that you had not abandoned your platoon back there and come here, huh”, the guard savagely asks him as they ascend the stairs.

“Not at all, if I had stayed back there, I would have been dead long ago, we were being sent to slaughter.”

At this the guard’s temper flared, “Then you should have stayed there and died, died rather than abandon your brothers, as any of us would have done for you.”

Robert cracked an amused smile, though it did not reach his eyes, “Do you think there is glory in death? Is the prospect of killing and dying for a cause an honorable one?”

“It is, after all, what is a man without honor, it is a privilege to give up your life for your country.”, the guard exclaimed proudly.

This response drew an honest laugh from Robert, “Dying is easy young man, living is harder. Stand amongst the corpses of a thousand dead and ask them what honor is, their silence is your answer. Pray that you never encounter this harsh reality, for your own sake.”

As Robert finished saying this, the executioner put the noose around his neck and put a blindfold on his eyes.

He doesn’t feel any sort of fear or even anger at anyone, he feels…. free, honestly, he had longed for this release, Lord knows how long he had longed for this. Was it his father, the war, the corpses, the fighting or was it…. her? He is now standing on the trapdoor, soon it will be over, he can hear the frantic ravings of the crowd now.

The priest came and started praying, it was an old prayer, one that Robert had heard countless times as a child and it brought with it a flood of memories.

The executioner began counting—a ritual not of law, but of spectacle. A final cruelty, drawn out for the amusement of the crowd. And as the count started, Robert found himself remembering….

“Ten!”

He remembered his father’s belt, whistling almost unnaturally in the air before making contact with his naked flesh.

“Nine!”

His mother’s rare moments of affection and attention.

“Eight!”

The last time that he had kissed his wife before he and his friends were all shipped away to certain doom, as he had known for some time.

“Seven!”

His first taste of combat, the unfettered screams, the smell of charred flesh and the pounding of his heart in his ears, the sight of his childhood companions dying left and right as he barely keeps himself hidden.

“Six!”

The cleanup duties, the endless hours of wading through eviscerated corpses and vivisected, still alive soldiers to find the ones whose families paid to get the corpses delivered home.

“Five!”

The nightmares, the fervent tossing around in his tent, the smell of burning, rotting blood. Humans cannot, and should not be bleeding so much, they say that he is losing his mind, that he is seeing and hearing things that simply aren’t. The doctor reassures him that the corpse’s eyes are not following him around.

“Four!”

Her note comes, I am not well it says, no one is around to help, they are going to drag me back to that damnable factory again tomorrow, please help me, please save me. He is publicly whipped for daring to ask his commander for his permission.

“Three!”

He runs away. Damn this war, damn this nation, damn his pride, he is going home.

“Two!”

They tell him she never returned from the factory that day, and they point him in the direction of the dumping grounds, where “orphaned” bodies are “disposed” of. He finds her there after hours of digging and as he sits there clutching her half-rotten corpse in the dim moonlight, he feels a certain melodramatic quality about this scene but for some reason, he is not crying, he is not even sad. Inside him, there is a perfect pool of nothingness, his insides are as dead as the corpse in his arms.

“One!”

They find him wandering the streets aimlessly and after hearing his story, they put him in a jail cell. He is to be executed for desertion, he is to be made an example of. He is more than happy to oblige.

As the countdown came to an end, Robert Marsh found himself uttering one last prayer. He had been told by several people in the previous few days that God doesn’t listen to traitors and cowards, but still, he prays with conviction. No God worth worshipping would throw a hissy fit over a man trying to find some closure.

The trapdoor opened, eternally reuniting Robert with his wife.

The crowd cheered wildly and the next prisoner was brought forth.

All of this happened a long time ago, in a place far far away. Yet even as we are separated from Robert by time, many of us still share his fate.

The war still rages on, eternal and all-consuming. The factories are still devouring, they are throwing humanity itself into their furnaces. We remember all their victims, not as a show of rebellion against some uncaring authority, but out of kindness, out of respect.

We remember all those people who lived beautiful ordinary lives, that were cut short by unspeakable cruelties they never deserved. And to them, all we can say is, "You will never be forgotten."