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♥"Parlez-vous Français?"
She speaks to me like nothing's wrong, like I'm not holding a gun to her throat - like I'm not about to blow her neck off. Her voice is steady, fearless. Her olive-gray eyes bore into mine, and not even her eyes shake. She scrutinizes me, awaiting a reply, and it takes me a while before I can open my mouth. Even more seconds tick by afterwards, for my voice is caught in my throat and rendering me mute.
"Je fais, mademoiselle, je parle un peu français" I say in a heavily accented French. I took French in high school because all my friends did. Undoubtedly, I regret the decision now. I could have made new friends. No, I should have made new friends. It would surely have lessened the guilt of murder.
Every time I kill a Frenchman, I hear their pleas for help. I hear them screaming at me about their children, how smart and respectful they are. The screams and pleas alone kill you inside, even if you don't understand the language. If you do understand it, then may you be blessed; it is hell. No, hell would be better. Choosing death is surely wiser than enduring the guilt of murder, enduring the fact that you've murdered people with families they love... families that love them.
I have contemplated suicide too many times, only to realize that it is impossible. In a world where my family is eagerly awaiting my return, desperately hoping that I will survive all these missions and come back home. My family would cry if I were to return injured, and it would nearly destroy some of them if I were to either return with life-threatening damages or not return at all. I can only imagine the expressions on their faces when news arrives that it wasn't the enemy who killed me, but my own stupid hands.
"Je ne dérange pas la mort," she coos. I do not mind death. "M'ai une famille pour prendre soin de." But I have a family to care for. "Désolé. Je ne peux pas mourir." Sorry. I cannot die.
With that, she turns around adroitly and sprints off in the opposite direction. It's stupid, because what I've got here is a gun. The fact that I'm on a battlefield symbolizes the fact that I'm half-decent at using it, and in my case, experience has honed my techniques enough that my accuracy is pretty good. Really, accuracy isn't even needed. She's not very fast.
I aim my gun at her, wondering why I didn't shoot her when I had her right in my grasp. It's an important task that cannot go wrong. She is the wife of the enemy's leader, and I hear she is a Lady Macbeth, the one who controls everything behind the sidelines. Her death would bring drastic improvement to the situation of the war for my country. Yet, no matter how hard I try, I cannot bring myself to push the trigger. I quickly realize why my hand refuses to obey.
Looking at her is like staring at a mirror. She reminds me of myself. It's the way she tries to convince herself that she's not selfish enough to live despite the guilt that threatens her everyday life. She blames the urge to live on her family, claiming that her family needs her.
Honestly, though... no matter how much they love us, no matter how long it will take for them to adjust to our deaths, we're replaceable. We are nothing special. I let the woman go. Someone else will get her eventually. I'm not letting her live, only postponing her death. Suddenly, like a bright light bulb above my head, I know just what I want to do.
And I'll do it with my very last bullet.
 Chiseri · Sun Nov 11, 2012 @ 07:26am · 0 Comments |
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