5287. AND SO LET US MARCH TO WAR

AND SO LET US 
MARCH TO WAR

We will go, holding each other steady : some miscreant from

the bomb factory has left these things behind. We can take

them now. Fuse. Wick. Timer. What's the difference, and

what's the use? I don't know. Everything that happens

happens for a reason, but those things that did not happen

did not happen then for a reason also? Too deep and now

confusing, all that, for me. Those things that did not happen,

they really happened anyway? I am limbless now because this

bomb went off in my hands? If that did not happen, then

what did, and why? scant motive, scant reason, for living.

And so, let us march to war  -  holding the meanings

we want, whatever shade of misery we select. We can

shoot the abject maiden and her children. We can kill the

farmer's cows. If he resists, he too will have to go. We will

burn all the huts in a row, and decimate the houses and

their clans. Nothing ought to be left. We will claim this

as our land. And so, let us march to war, the way 

we've done a hundred times before.