War and Peas

TW: War, swearing.

My country is screwed. Why? Chickpeas. I’ll get to that.

The ground trembled beneath our feet. The screen went blank just as the film was reaching the climax. The lights went out. Some ran for the emergency exit. I didn’t see the point. You can’t outrun a missile. If we were being bombed and the ceiling hadn’t collapsed, we were as safe as anywhere we could run to.

My wife’s tears glittered in the dark. White light poured in through the emergency exit. Dust and rubble in the world beyond were framed by the black cinema. The rectangular portal to a warzone.

“Should we run?” Asked the love of my life. “I thought we were safe here. They said we were safe.”  Brown eyes were black in the dark. The whites of her eyes were blue, reflecting the seats that had been full of cinephiles moments before.

“We’re safe gorgeous,” I said, putting all the calm I could muster into my words. My hands closed over hers as the world outside exploded. Shaking in terror, the cinema made a liar of me. “We know the north is safe. The car is parked outside. We’ll go to the car. I can drive. Can you do that?”

Fear added a cognitive delay. She was a rabbit in the headlights. She nodded when the message penetrated her terror.

My wife is autistic. She hates unexpected loud noises. The cinema is her limit. We don’t see horror movies or action movies, anything that’s going to throw in sudden bangs or jump scares.

“I’m going to guide you, alright? You can put your hands over your ears, and I’ll walk with you to the car. Are you ready?” I look at her, speaking slowly.

“Yes,” she said. Her hands clamped down over her ears. I put my hand on her back. She doesn’t let anyone else except me and her parents touch her. She still winces as I touch her. Once contact is made she’s fine, but she says the initial feeling of someone else putting a hand on her makes her uncomfortable.

She was shaking as we walked. Having to focus on her calmed me down. Getting her to safety was more important than nonsense around us. An explosion nearby shook the ground. My love trembled, knees shaking as we walked.

People ran north. The building across the road was rubble. A hand with a ring on it hung limp from the rubble. Our neighbours have a lot to answer for.

Rubble had turned our yellow car grey. I reached for the keys in my pocket.

BANG!

She was screaming.

I looked for blood, for any injury.

It was the noise. She hates the noise.

“We need to get in the car, can you hear me?” I opened the door.

She was tearing at her hair.

“Please, beautiful. You need to get in the car.” I wanted to pick her up and put her in the back seat but when she’s freaked out, she fights.

BANG!

Behind us the cinema took a direct blow. The screen where we had been watching a kid’s film collapsed in on itself.

“We need to go,” I said. Trying to be calm when the world was exploding around me was impossible. My heart was a machine gun rattle, and my nerves were shot. Dealing with one of her breakdowns is stressful enough.

Information sunk through her panic, and she threw herself into the car without me having to touch her. I sobbed with relief as I closed the door gently, always gently.

She was rocking herself in the back seat as I started the car.

Tires crunched on the rubble of ruin. My wife screamed in the back of the car, louder than the explosions outside. I had to roll down the windows to save my ears. Trying to drive around the dead, I was glad the beauty in the back seat wasn’t paying attention. As soon as we were out of the city, I put my foot down.

The car roared down the road. I kept going until we were stopped at an army checkpoint. I had to show the soldiers our identification. They wanted to know why my wife was bracing herself in the fetal position. My explanation received only blank faces from the young men in their camouflage uniforms.

“Fucking chickpeas,” said one of the soldiers with the fluffy upper lip fuzz of a first moustache.

The invaders are the world’s largest producer of chickpeas. We produced a lot at the start of the war as well. Our mutual neighbour imports almost half of its staple food from us. Now that we can’t sell them the chickpeas their only supplier is our invasive imperial neighbour. The security pact of mutual defence between us and the chickpea lovers meant nothing when they had their biggest food source cut off.

I drove past silos waiting to be emptied. There’s nowhere for them to go now. We won’t starve but we don’t have the firepower to win this war alone. The help we needed isn’t coming.

The young men drafted to lay down their lives in the name of liberty are dying because of chickpeas. It’s mad. Every day the news is full of faces. Soldiers shot in combat. Civilians dead in their homes or lying in the streets.

I had only just signed the papers on our new house when the war began. All our savings went into bricks and mortar as tanks rolled across the border.

We ran. Life is more important than anything we left behind but still, it hurts. We had a sweet country home near the border. It was quiet. No loud cars, nothing to set off my wife.

The further we are chased north the more people there are. People grieving for a dying nation. No one does that quietly. People think she’s cold when she puts on the noise cancelling headphones to block out the sounds of grief. They think she’s mad when she starts screaming. All she needs is quiet. All we need is peace.

Fucking chickpeas.