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Andrew Cutter

A great and horrible war is transpiring. Its dimensions are the confines of the imagination. It is not restricted to a sea or to any landmass. Like a morning mist the breadth of this war spreads its enveloping nature over all things. It climbs trees and sinks into ditches. Its breath flows on the breath of the people it smothers. Its pitiful siege cannot be won. The great bastion of the besieged remains firm; it is altered neither by brute strength nor even subtle erosion. The battling force is like the tide, ever returning to attack the harbour of its foe. It struggles tirelessly and unendingly but makes no effect. Hope of victory was vanquished long ago, if ever it existed. The conflict carries on as it always has because it always has. Its battle cry suppresses the whispers of anything better. It knows nothing else and wants nothing else. Want, for what cannot be had, derides good because good is not known.

Ah, to turn my back on the war. To set it in the past, to make of it a mere skirmish. Therein lays glorious victory. The day that is done will not be marked by grand parades or trumpets blast, but by a sense of peace.