The March to Water

The following short story i plagiarized from a dream i had; my conscious mind could never come up with anything so epic.

...As I came upon friends and neighbors (strangers all alike), I noticed a grim business at hand. They prepared themselves in solemn procession and began to file forward. Where are we headed?

“Across the water,” a craggy old voice whispered to me. “The battles have been terrible and now it is come to an end.”

Finally! What joy, we shall crush them. The suffering shall be ended. With such an army in splendid array, our foes will be no match.

It is a wonder that they did not share my excitement, but kept to their grim business. The state of mind is vital to maintain, I reasoned, and marched silently on. I had come upon them at the edge of the water. This is whence our warships previously set gloriously and courageously out, conquest and defense simultaneously their sacred mission. Their sleek, slender bodies were smooth and cut easily through the water, as if carved in one piece from gigantic trees, which had grown since generations beyond any our people had seen. From these ancient sources, we could draw our strength, primal and eternal, a wellspring of life that seeped up out of the ground and imbued us with a power that would never be overcome. As legend told, the trees that populated our land were offspring of Yggdrasil itself; and so we fought on the very side of Life itself.

As we crossed the water, I noticed tokens being set adrift as if memorials. They were candles set upon delicate lilypads. Through the mist of dawning light, they appeared to me as perfect exemplars of life. Fire burning bright, raw, consuming energy, yet perched so perilously that the slightest turbulence might precipitate their demise into the grey depths. They spread out from our hands as the harbor entrance widened and they each followed separate paths that seemed so difficult to predict. I watched them, entranced for quite some time as I continued to absently follow the procession. Up ahead, I heard shouting. Finally, the battle is on, the time is at hand! And yet as I approached, these warcries turned to celebration and revelry.

The waters that separated our land from our most mortal enemies were shallow; indeed, perhaps our proximity was the reason we were so diametrically opposed. Though we occupied so similar a geographic region, we had nonetheless developed quite differently, and these divergences were cause for constant tension and discord. Perhaps this is the way with humanity, that we can be so near in our perspectives and yet still our slight differences metastasize into black, cancerous hatred where, in reality, understanding should flourish. We refuse to see past these insignificant differences and demonize each other, refusing to believe that each person we see is a reflection of ourselves, of our relation with the unknown. Is then, our hatred for others merely a frightened acknowledgment of our own flaws?

Finally, we reached the shores of our enemies, and I was shaken out of these laughable reveries by my returned and reignited bloodthirst. My momentary weakness was thankfully replaced by the return of my unconscious desire to avenge my family, my forebears, my country for centuries of injustice and insult at the hand of our enemy. I beat upon my chest and joined the collective cry for vengeance, and I teetered upon the very edge of insanity as I gave in to the frenzy of war. However, something was wrong.

To my amazement, we walked right through their streets, awaited, expected, yet not attacked. Watched, we passed the smooth stone roads, and the gigantic marble columns, which shone with the brilliance of the Ancients. In their likeness, I saw the embodiment of the demons I had heard of as a child. It was a polite nightmare, a silent profile of old horrors and completely unintelligible heroes, values of which I could never conceive. These were the faces of the Enemy, who had shed the blood of countless of my brethren. Strange as I now saw them for myself, they seemed almost human. They had two eyes with which to see the world, and yet they saw things so differently. They had ears which had heard such different things. They spoke words, but were they anything but poison? For the first time in my life, I felt a moment of hesitation. Were they really any different? They looked so similar to us, would I have even noticed these almost familiar faces as they silently infiltrated my homeland, doubtless on some nefarious mission? Again, I was interrupted, but I felt as if I were on the precipice of some great Realization.

We came to a Temple, and I witnessed a strange and inexplicable sight. Each one of our line, our Nation, each man, woman and child, silently bowed his head beneath their sacred fountain.

What is this?! What is this treachery, what insult, to be anointed by our foes?!

“Hush,” said the old woman who had spoken to me before. “Don’t you know? The war is over. The battles have been too long and too costly. The blood runs thick as from rivers, and we are weary.”

What do you mean?! Then are you saying...?”

“That we go to be cleansed, to be purified, so that we may stand before their altar. And be sacrificed...”