Why do humans wage wars?

Why do humans wage wars?

This had been a question I had been asking myself for centuries.

Do they do it because they like it? I do not think so, for they scream and cower and tremble. They do not do it to protect people, for millions die. They do not do it for peace, for these wars are synonymous with chaos. They do not do it for fraternity, for they take arms against one another, against their own.

Why do humans wage wars?

I finally figured the answer out during the occurrence of the First World War. And it came about after much reflection on an encounter I had had with Death.

~ 

Death is a busy person. Death has to be at multiple places at the same Time. Death is here. Death is there. Death is everywhere, and nowhere. Unavoidable. And I long for it. Death does not discriminate, it simply takes. Mortals call this harsh, but I feel it a mercy. Death is peace. Death is tranquility. Death is simple.

The First World War cost millions of lives.  For a very brief period, I stopped every clock in the world, every grain of sand trickling in an hourglass. 

This was at the request of Death itself. The war had taken its toll on everyone involved, and Death was not an exception. War is a punishment, and everything that comes along with it a bigger one. Reaping the souls of millions, I think, is the harshest punishment of them all.

Death came to my realm when I stopped Time. Floating up to me, silently, we both watched the human race destroy, silence settling over us like a thick blanket.

We stayed like that for a while.

~

After Time had started up again, I watched as Death reaped the souls of the dead, whispering reaffirmations to the afraid, and smiling at the brave. I wondered what Death had done to deserve such a cruel fate. I wondered whether every soul Death would reap in the future would be reminiscent of the horrors of the past.

~

Why do humans wage wars?

They wage wars because they are cowards. Because they are afraid, and Fear breeds Chaos.

But the end of war brings daylight.  

Mortals associate this word with happiness. The dawn of a new day. The start of a new age. The end of suffering, the harbinger of joy. A new sunrise to symbolise the ending of a cruel night.

I associate the word with a memory I have, a testament to the horrors of war. 

A memory of two siblings and one ship. A memory of Ilse and Gustav. 

~ 

It was twilight. Freezing temperatures and the twinkling of stars overhead marked the sinking of a ship. 

This was January of 1945. I remember the day quite clearly, particularly because humans would mark this day in history. In Time.  

It was the day many lost hope. It was a day that left many scarred. It was a day when I realised why mortals call life cruel.

It was the day the greatest disaster in maritime history occurred. 

~ 

The MV Wilhelm Gustloff was the last hope for many German civilian refugees. It was daylight, personified in 25,000 tons of steel 208 metres long. MV Wilhelm Gustloff signified the end of misery. It signified the end of war. It also signified the end of thousands of lives, though the people onboard were not aware of this until it was too late.

~ 

There wasn’t enough space for the both of them.

This was what Ilse noticed as soon as she neared the lifeboat, hand clutching Gustav’s tightly. The ship was sinking, there weren’t enough lifeboats, and not enough space for both of them in the one left.  

Being one of the very few able-bodied people on board, the both of them had been running on the deck of the ship as it slid underwater, helping mothers and children into the boats. They gave their coats to two children stuttering in the cold. They helped an old man into a lifeboat.  

Ilse cursed. If only they hadn’t helped the others, maybe there would have been place for the both of them. If only they hadn’t helped the pregnant lady down the first raft, maybe they would’ve been on a lifeboat and not on the deck of a rapidly sinking ship. 

Gustav’s grip around her hand tightened.  

It was a miracle they both had managed to stay alive this long. “The horrors of war are  impossible to survive”, their mother had once said. And when Ilse had climbed onto the  Wilhelm Gustloff, she was sure that she had proved her mother wrong.  

She was not so sure anymore.  

~

Gustav would not climb into the boat without her, and Ilse wouldn’t step foot on the raft  without him. That much was evident. The love between them was a force, a force not prepared to face the brutality of leaving the other behind.

They both knew this. Both knew that one would not go on without the other.  

They nodded at each other.

~ 

There were no lifeboats left. There was no Time left as well.  

The boat had now sunk. In her last moments of consciousness, she hoped that Gustav would make a life for him somewhere out there, and that he’d grow up to survive losing his last bit of family. Hoped that he’d grow to be happy in the present, and at peace with his past. He’d wanted to explore the world. They both had, and she hoped desperately that he’d actualise the dream, that he’d see the marvels that the world had to offer him. And perhaps selfishly, she wanted him to think of her as he did, to remember her.

She was dying, and she hoped that death give her what her life had been unable to.

Moonlight beamed upon the water, falling right into her eyes, and the last thought Ilse has before her eyes close forever is that the tiny, tiny sliver of moon looked beautiful as it shone into her eyes.