Utopia
It has been a thousand years since the Great War
A thousand years of perfect peace and harmony
A thousand years since the only world we know was physically separated from the ‘outside’
The outside never recovered from the Great War
Thousands of smaller wars have erupted since then
They say a lot of things, the scholars, historians, keepers of the past,
They say we, Utopians, have been fortunate
That it’s not humanly possible for so many different looking and thinking people, black, white, red, to live so peacefully together in an enclosed world
They say our world is too good to be true
They say our world is not real
They come from the outside and they distort everything we know, we believe
They say a war is coming
Either from the outside or within ourselves
They say human nature would corrupt Utopia just as it has corrupted the rest of the world
I don’t know if they are right and I don’t want to think about it, about discord
But it was all Chance could think about
He needed to do something about it
If Utopia had to be involved in the war then he would play his part
Last week, Chance volunteered to serve in the Utopian Peacekeepers Delegation
A division conceived by the council to keep the crisis out of Utopia
He received his conscription almost immediately
Yesterday, he followed his fellow recruits and new superiors aboard a frightfully large jet
I think at that moment he had never looked happier
It was impossible for him to hide his teeth as he moved excitedly with palpable energy
Completely oblivious to my pain
He seemed so happy to leave me
I had never felt heavier seeing him completely overcome with glee
He would be gone six months
One eighty days
I was alone when I met Chance
My parents were alive and I had five siblings
But I was so alone
I was working in a departmental store when I first saw him
He was beautiful and kind looking but I decided to ignore
Five minutes later, an entire heap of canned fish was falling from underneath me and a pair of hands were pulling me out of the line of fire
I dread to imagine all those cans landing on my feet
I felt heavy breathing at the back of my neck and realized I was still held prisoner by two solid arms
I moved out of the shield of flesh so quickly that I fell to my hands and feet
Someone pulled me up again and I felt my embarrassment grow with each breath I took
I heard his voice for the first time from behind me as I moved quickly towards the storeroom
He was calling for me to hold on, to slow down
I couldn’t get out of the room quicker
God alone knew why I was behaving like a fish out of water
But for some reason I was nervous
Ok, well, I was a klutz any given day and it was completely expected for me to tip over a pile of produce
I wondered why I was weirdly shaken by that encounter
By the next week, I had forgotten about the little incident
I was sitting on a bench in the only park in the city
The only place that you could get some peace and quiet, just
It was the only one hour in the day I had to myself after office work and before house work
I was facing the clear glassy duck pond but I had my eyes on the amazingly colorful sunset
This one was special and I had to capture it on paper
The purple, yellow, blue, white and grey colors that all flowed into each other in harmony, ushering away the burnt orange sun
And then the way it all reflected in the tiny pond beneath it
Bending forward over my work, some of my thick brown hair over my face, with the quacking of ducks for background music,
I was awed by the fast strokes of my paint brush as I hurried to capture the scene perfectly
For most artists it was a slow and painstaking process
But for me it was a spiritual happening
Something took over me when I got the inspiration
At one moment, a shadow fell over my easel
I trembled slightly to see the dark silhouette on my paper
I bit my lower lip a little too hard
But I couldn’t stop painting, I couldn’t break transmission
The human outline did not shift, even slightly, it waited patiently till the end
My brush fell to the ground at the last stroke
And as I looked at the picture, I knew nothing needed to be added, it was perfect!
The sky view was in my paper.
And still the shadow hadn’t moved
And then I heard his voice
He told me what I already knew
That the painting was a miracle
I looked at him and registered the same awe I knew was written on my face too
I smiled at him
He walked me home that night because he wouldn’t hear of me walking back alone in the dark
That feels like a lifetime ago
Chance wanted to help people, to save people, to protect them
He wanted his life to have some deep meaning
He dreamed of it
At heart, he was a fighter, a defender
He loved the take-care-of role
With the talk of coming chaos in Utopia taking flight, it didn’t take long for his protect-the-people instinct to kick in
To him, he had to have an active part in the cause
That was the only way he could truly help,
Join the army
The entire idea, logic, theory made no sense to me
All of this “peacekeeping” would not bring peace!
They will not really protect the people
Utopia has never experienced war and I don’t know what it will be like but I know it would destroy everything
Sometimes, in the dead of the night, when all is silent, loud explosions could only just be heard and gentle vibrations felt from whatever ominous thing was occurring on the outside
And sometimes, I could just make out human screams
or maybe I just imagined them
I think about how life is out there, how people live there,
Why they couldn’t join us and live here where it is safe and peaceful
But now we join them in dispute and discord
Every single citizen of Utopia would be dragged into this dreadful event, consciously or unconsciously
I can feel our lives changing irrevocably
We would never know this peace again, I know
And I am afraid
Soldiers die
They are always the first to go
They fought and sacrificed their lives for the “greater good”,
For the country
For the vague nation of Utopia which somehow never really included the singular people
And after war, there is never peace, there is just destruction
I think I am a pacifist
I do not NO cannot understand why the world hasn’t learnt from the patterns of the past
And now everything I know and love has been plunged into this meaningless protracted war that might never end
Nobody remembers why it started.
As I watched the enormous craft lift into the sky, I couldn’t help feeling sick to my stomach
I could have stopped him
I knew I had the power to
I could have asked him, told him how I felt about him leaving
About the whole idea of the peace keeping mission
How all my “excitement” was fake
I could have told him
He would have changed his mind
But how could I have?
He thinks this is his destiny!
I love him and I don’t want him having regrets because of me
How could I ask him not to do this if he believed this was his life's mission?!
He might have agreed to stay because of me
But he would have grown bitter hanging around in the country when the idea of fighting for the safety of the people had already stoked a fire in him
I would be quenching that fire
And he would never thank me for it
He would eventually blame me for keeping him from what could have been
I can't handle him hating me
And he would
Not at first
It would be a slow and painful process
And I would never be able to live with myself
Still, now he's gone and I cannot imagine how I will live with myself
Last night, I couldn't sleep
The night before that, I couldn't sleep
But at least the bed was soft and warm
And our quaint, square, wood logged room was not quiet
Chance couldn't sleep too
But for a completely different reason from mine
He was bubbling with uninhibited mirth
He was sitting up on the bed, his back resting on the headboard
Outlining the itinerary for the six months he will spend with the delegation
It occurred to me that Utopia has never had an army, how can they know what they are doing?
I had not noticed that tears had started streaming unchecked down my cheeks until he asked me why I was crying
I looked at him, he was truly confused
That was my first show of anything besides happiness and approval
I didn't wipe the tears from my face, no
I let them fall freely
Because what I wanted so desperately to say, I couldn't
I stared at him and his gentle, kind eyes filled with concern for me, called out to me
I leaned up to pull his face to mine
His lips to mine
The gentle kiss was reassuring
I felt like I could absorb his strength and make it mine
We didn't talk more that night but we said everything we needed to say to each other
And the next morning I escorted him to his fate
Watch out for Part 3 next Sunday.
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