By Annabelle Kennedy, TIWP Student

Once upon a now, a woman sat in the ruins of her city and dreamed of peace and revenge. 

She walks among the ruins of a house, her blanket – the only thing she truly owns now – hangs over her shoulders gaunt from lack of food. If she looks close enough, she can see things sticking from the rubble and charred stone and wood. A child’s doll, a small shoe, a man’s shirt, an arm with blood drying in a thin stream on the wrist. 

If she closes her eyes she can still hear the sounds of rockets and bombs piercing the roof of their home, suddenly fragile as glass, as new spring grass, heavy with dew and bodies. 

The power is gone, the water is drying up. She hears the cries of children as they wander the streets, innocent eyes no longer so innocent wide with tears, mouths stretched in gaping pleas unheard by the planes and soldiers crossing the lands and overhead. 

Let them come, she thinks, clutching the faded cloth tighter around her shoulders. 

Let their bodies and their water give new life to the earth. 

We will grow flowers from the rot. 

A soldier stumbles down the road, his clothes torn, cuts adorn his body, one arm missing at the elbow. His legs are sore, his eyes wide from shock, his helmet hanging limp around his neck. 

He has been at war for 6 months, 12 days, and 7 hours. He has been missing a limb for 2 minutes, the burnt cauterized stump wrapped in the torn sleeve of his uniform. He passes a dozen people, maybe more, on his path. Eyes staring blankly ahead into the starless sky. 

He remembers the letter he sent, paper folded into crisp thirds with steady hands, each letter and word and phrase seared into his mind like the pain in his arm. 

Soon I’ll come home, and we’ll be married with you in a veil embroidered with wildflowers that goes all the way to your feet, and your womb will carry the most beautiful baby girl in the universe. I’ll plant you a garden and buy you a house with a bookshelf in every room. 

He repeats this over and over again, like a prayer, except this is not a church, and he will not kneel. If he does, he might never stand up again. 

The woman on the TV breathes a heavy sigh, as the screen goes black and she slumps in her seat. She is tired, she is so tired. The images swarm before her eyes like a cluster of bees. A pair of dead lifeless eyes, a ruined door frame, a pair of burnt children’s shoes lying in the road, a girl’s doll, the arm sprinkled with small drops of blood. She chose the images herself. The way to the people’s hearts and the way to convince them is not just showing them the bigger things, the bombs and tanks – although those are quite effective. You choose the smallest possible and work off of the resonance of that. You open the curtain and show them the horror beneath the horror. 

She has heard some reporters describe the sounds and sights as ‘the songs of war.’ 

But it is not a song. 

It is a screaming, wailing chorus of hell.