No Colour in the Rising Sun a work of Fiction by ruby (Melissa ) A soldiers thoughts on his experience of war. I was only seventeen when I was sent to fight in a war that I did not believe in. I had no choice, the Government took that right and decided my future for me. I had to leave the ones I loved and there was a great chance of never meeting their eyes again. My body transformed into a machine programmed only with hostility and destruction. I can recall my heart thumping so loud as to exclude the noise surrounding. The numbing silence of its beat would only be broken by streaming gunfire. My gun becoming a part of me, as much as my eyes and feet. My ears were my radar, a single sound could trigger my gun. The days went on forever yet they seemed all the same. They were all filled with their dreary endless rain, but the water could never wash away the stain upon my conscience. I took many lives, while being forced to disregard their souls. What my eyes have seen no man's should have to endure. I pushed the pain way back inside my heart, behind a barrier of disbelief. The world looks only grey through the eyes of a soldier. No colour in the rising sun, there could be no pleasure found in the fury. I lived with the knowledge that my life could be taken in a heart beat, as if it meant nothing. My body left in the mud amongst the scum. Perhaps never to return to the country where my life began. To be buried in front of the people who made my life worth something. My life became almost inhuman, I was an alien to myself. I had no control of my own. I was given orders by strangers to do things I had to force myself to do. The motivation for killing was one I was told to feel. All that drove me was what I use to have, before the war began, before it was raped from me. Back in my house with familiar faces. Where the innocent children played at my feet. With my friends down the road and my whole life ahead of me. Where all tomorrow means is a day to live life, not a day to survive life. I still have visions of a soldier on his knees, as if in a position of mercy. He had strayed from his unit and I had caught him. I looked into his eyes, and the moment I did it I wish I hadn't for they were filled with such longing that I had not witnessed out here. I knew what I had to do, and as I pulled the trigger I hated the world for making me do it. This was no life for the living and there was no name for the dead. Senseless destruction of the earth. We were mechanical soldiers of death, not freedom. We wore clothing which camouflaged us from the enemy. Made us blend in with our background. Some days I would get so tired with my position I would just want to blend right into the background never to be seen again. Never to be remembered for what my hands had done. The day I was discharged I looked into the sky and I could finally feel a piece of freedom in a world I had felt trapped in for so long. Though I knew my conscience would keep me tied down till my end. I had been lucky to survive but I felt nothing of the sort. I don't think I can ever love again when I was consumed by hate for so long. My dreams will haunt me forever. When I wake up in the night with sweat melting off my body. My head filled with visions of fellow soldiers that didn't make it back. Those black days when I witnessed the spilling of so much blood upon our gift of this earth. Saw bodies strewn across the dark earth. The worst thing was when I knew the soldier, he was in my unit. When one minute we were in battle together, the next he was clutching his chest and his face was scrunched with pain. That was the only time I cried out there. The only time I would let the emotion take me over. Let it surge through my body till I had to let it out. Inevitably I had to pull myself together or I would never have lived it out. Sometimes I wish I hadn't. You have to expect death out there. Learn to live with it and move on. But death never becomes a reflex action, you can never feel content within. Some people say that all you need to know about a man is written in his eyes. I sometimes wonder what others see in mine. When I know I will always hear the footsteps of the enemy I was told to hate. Created on Wed, 21 Jan 1998 and last modified on Sun, 25 Jan 1998.

LOUDonline - http://www.loud.net.au - Fri, 10 Apr 1998