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War

Thu, 05/22/2014 - 7:00am

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One young woman's reaction to everything she's lost. Written as a monologue for a high school theatre class and inspired by my European History class's unit on the Napoleonic wars.

Good bye, my love!

A war is in the air. The arms have raised in recent days, and men are leaving right and left. Boys follow the bright battle lines, men in rows marching off to their glory.

Or their doom.

Another moon sets this day to let the sun shine forth, but does my love come this way? No, he's off ... off ... a member of the great battle cry reaching across the land.

Now the women rise to bake and wash and clean their little kingdoms. Tending the house, tending the yard. A morning glory wakes in the flower grove, little sun beams coaxing it with motherly care. Time to wake up, time to live! Now old men rise and nod over tea sweetened for their gums to sip, then labor out to find a way, a way to earn a bit.

For no young men go out to work. No young boys look out to play. All are gone to seek their glory.

Or their doom.

I tarry midst the saplings my love planted, grown so strong and true since then. They come to my shoulders, stretching to the sky, with life to seek their futures. They're so much more alive then those old stumps back there, so much more in tune with life.

I wish the battle cry had never struck a chord in each man's heart.

I wish the men would come back to work and tend their homes.

I wish the boys would stay and grow like saplings, brave and strong, to face the storms of life. But all I'm left with are old stumps of used up years, to waste away until they die.

Those brave young lives joined the mighty lines of war, by threes and fives and tens at times. The marched off to meet their glory, meet their calling, meet their maker.

They marched off and left me to my doom.