Ink Raindrops

Posted By admin on February 1, 2010

I don’t know what the alcohol is made from on Foreas, but it brings out the worst in people. I found this out one afternoon while taking refuge from the chaos outside Foreas Base with a bottle of brew, lost in my private thoughts at the local tavern. I’d thought it would be a good place to avoid the pleading eyes of soldiers begging for assistance in the form of my healing disc; who could need healing in a bar? Of course, someone managed to prove me wrong.

Seeing the injection gun at my hip, he asked if the “good doctor” wanted to hear a story. In the interest of civility in an already uncivilized world, I invited him to pull up a stool. Having pursued half of my former education in the field of psychology, I was well aware of the importance of being available to those in need. There were many soldiers yet traumatized by their new lot in life, and this fellow was no exception.

He opened his mouth to tell his story, but what came out was a swan song for our dead Earth, just as I had suffered from countless others before him. He told me of his model wife and angelic children, and of his job that left him rich, and of his beauty of a car that got at least a billion miles to the gallon. All of it was gone, of course, and he didn’t see the reason in fighting any longer. What did it matter, if the Bane would win regardless of what we did? We never saw it coming, and we wouldn’t the next time either. He never saw my fist until it had made contact with his jaw.

I was beyond tired of hearing about the world we’d left behind. Every soldier fighting had the same story to tell, and the more they told it, the more they believed that everything would be right again. Perhaps at the thousandth telling, their wives would be in their arms again, or their children’s laughter would ring in their ears anew. They didn’t realize that with each telling, they died a little more inside by demanding constant memory and recreation of the past. Most swore vengeance in the same story, but I knew better – only those of us who pushed our memories behind us would ever consciously make the decision to fight, and to win.

He didn’t want to hear it, and after a few curses and bitter threats, he left. I didn’t expect to see him again. However, my behavior left me with a sour taste in my own mouth. The old Hippocratic Oath rang loud and grating in my ears, and I sank back onto my stool and finished my drink in silence. The future would make animals of us all, and alcohol only brought the nature of that transformation to light. It was the last time I tried to find peace in a bottle.

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