This is how the invasion began.
Of course, at first it was business as usual. Dark business, maybe, unpleasant business certainly, but the edges can always be written off as a necessary but unwanted side effect. Still, the speeches were pretty, and the precipitous slide into war was seen as healthy and stimulating, at least by those in power. There would always be dissidents, they told themselves sadly, shaking their heads. There would always be people who didn't understand the necessity of war, of defence, of security. They pointed to the bombast, to the glory of it all, and in their eyes danced earlier battles, war wounds half-remembered still festering after all these years. And so, right or wrong, the young men went out to the world to fight for truth and die for a man that none of them had ever met. And still, the old, strong songs sprang to the lips of those at home, and the refrain of power, of dominance, echoed through the halls of the house of the state.
But then...then the first of the beautiful young men died, and gasped out his life in the dust, and then fell another and another, husbands brothers daughters wives. And then the coffins came, under cover of darkness. And in the day, we rejoiced at our imminent victory. And in the night we wept for the dead, and for death itself, and a few wept for folly, and others for greed. But still, it was said, that there could be no victory without sacrifice, and the greater good was mentioned, and also something tasteless about omelets. And still we sent our young men and our young women to fight and die and worse, to kill.
And then...as the difference between the day face and the night face became greater and greater with each heart that bled out into a desert night, as the cracked and crazed smile of the politicos began to seem more and more like the vapid maniacal grin of the psychotic, then and only then did people ask questions. Then were issues raised, and a weeping mother was seen on the television, and there was another flurry of careful maneuvering and delicate manipulation. It was only then that we thought of the coffins, of the bodies brought in, smuggled in under a flag and a night as black as pitch. It was only then that a weeping mother demanded to see the face of her baby boy one last time before they put him into the cold ground, and she was politely shushed, but this was television and a grand event and who could deny the wish of a grieving mother? And it was then, when there was no other option, that the casket was opened, and by then it was too late. Because the nation saw, all at once, the face of that boy there, the face wracked with horror and torment. And the other caskets on display were opened, and each showed the same visage, hidden under the darkness and the flag, each face distorted by an identical expression of abject and unrelenting dread. And amidst the shocked gasps of the hall in which this gruesome display took place, and the worried looks of the viewers watching at home, and the shouts and screams of those at the very highest echelons of power, amidst all of this commotion, a feeling like a finger of ice came to rest upon the back of the necks of practically every person in the nation. And at roughly the same time, all over our fine country, was the sudden nausea of a thousand thousand identical realizations, and the sudden cold sweat of a thousand thousand brows prickling with true fear. Because we had dared to make a war on Terror. And now Terror had landed on our shores. And the invasion began.
But then...then the first of the beautiful young men died, and gasped out his life in the dust, and then fell another and another, husbands brothers daughters wives. And then the coffins came, under cover of darkness. And in the day, we rejoiced at our imminent victory. And in the night we wept for the dead, and for death itself, and a few wept for folly, and others for greed. But still, it was said, that there could be no victory without sacrifice, and the greater good was mentioned, and also something tasteless about omelets. And still we sent our young men and our young women to fight and die and worse, to kill.
And then...as the difference between the day face and the night face became greater and greater with each heart that bled out into a desert night, as the cracked and crazed smile of the politicos began to seem more and more like the vapid maniacal grin of the psychotic, then and only then did people ask questions. Then were issues raised, and a weeping mother was seen on the television, and there was another flurry of careful maneuvering and delicate manipulation. It was only then that we thought of the coffins, of the bodies brought in, smuggled in under a flag and a night as black as pitch. It was only then that a weeping mother demanded to see the face of her baby boy one last time before they put him into the cold ground, and she was politely shushed, but this was television and a grand event and who could deny the wish of a grieving mother? And it was then, when there was no other option, that the casket was opened, and by then it was too late. Because the nation saw, all at once, the face of that boy there, the face wracked with horror and torment. And the other caskets on display were opened, and each showed the same visage, hidden under the darkness and the flag, each face distorted by an identical expression of abject and unrelenting dread. And amidst the shocked gasps of the hall in which this gruesome display took place, and the worried looks of the viewers watching at home, and the shouts and screams of those at the very highest echelons of power, amidst all of this commotion, a feeling like a finger of ice came to rest upon the back of the necks of practically every person in the nation. And at roughly the same time, all over our fine country, was the sudden nausea of a thousand thousand identical realizations, and the sudden cold sweat of a thousand thousand brows prickling with true fear. Because we had dared to make a war on Terror. And now Terror had landed on our shores. And the invasion began.