To a Conscript (of The Future War)

I am sorry

for the war

that you will have to fight.

You'll be fighting it for us,

you know.

You will never learn,

or ever understand

the reasons for it.

We demand your life,

just as the robber barons

and monarchies of old

demanded lives

to protect,

and secure,

and expand

the mad lust for power

of small and impotent men.

I am sorry

for the horrors

you will see.

I wish I could reach back

and strangle

these vain and psychopathic ones

early in the cradle,

so that you

would not have to meet the terms

of the contracts

that they have signed in blood.

It’s getting close now.

When I was young,

my father woke me up

early one morning

to watch grainy, green footage

of the air assault on Baghdad.

He told me

that it was the end of the world.

And I believed him.

He still may have been right.

Perhaps the apocalypse was born

in that moment,

and now, you are being called

to take the stage

for the final act.

I’m sorry

that your future

is no future at all.

But I pray that you

do not abandon hope.

We let ourselves forget the past,

and believed,

somehow

that we would be beyond

the slick tentacles of deception

that now violate our skulls,

and twist us up with drugs

for wanton bloodlust.

War.

In every home.

In every town.

in every city.

In every country.

All over the world.

Madness and death.

I used to think

it was arrogant to believe

that one would live to see

the end of days.

You see,

every generation

believes they are the last one.

So, we can be forgiven

of our melodrama.

But for you…

Oh, God.

I am so sorry.

The war you fight

will be for all the cards.

Evil in the hearts and minds of men,

and vile creations beyond imagining

are your future.

A bleak repartee,

I know.

But like I said before,

there is still hope.

If not for you,

then perhaps a generation after.

Hope never dies,

and if this is truly the Last Battle,

then know

that good wins

in the end.

This story

has already been written.

The conclusion,

long forgone.

The war you fight

will be fought in every timeline,

in every universe.

Or it will be,

in its own time.

The wheel turns

and the snake eats its tail.

I’m sorry,

but I wish that there were more

that I could do to prepare you,

other than to say this:

Love God.

Love your family.

Love your friends.

In the end,

that is what you will really fight for.

-DJR-