Thirty Days, Day 18 - Fast Fiction Challenge 2010: Fire In The Woods
Title: Fire In The Woods
Word: ridicule
Challenger: on_broadway36
Length: 200 words exactly With a grimace, the man put down the telephone. Like many of those of honour, the soldier disliked using power at someone else’s command.
He enjoyed, however, the authority that came with his rank; he took an almost physical pleasure from instructing others. He just preferred it when it was his orders, not others’.
The man looked out of the tent at the wooded forest before him.
Somewhere out there, hidden in copses and hollows, behind trees and in shadows, were men he would shortly order to be killed, merely because he had been told to do so.
When he was younger, he might have questioned such a situation, but to even raise the question now would simply hold himself and his men up to ridicule. Or so he believed.
And others believed the same, from the highest to the lowest ranking.
The offence of the enemy was merely to be the enemy. That, they all admitted in the depths of night when no one could know, was also their purpose.
That it was also the tragedy of all those who thought they had honour never even occurred to them, which was, of course, why it was their tragedy.
© Lee Barnett, 2010
This story is part of the 2010 Fast Fiction Challenge, written for the Thirty Days Project. New challenges can be made here.
The Fast Fiction Challenge - The Book; now available from lulu.com and, if you're in the US, via Amazon.com here; 180 of the best fast fiction challenge stories from the first three years' challenges... Buy it now.
Word: ridicule
Challenger: on_broadway36
Length: 200 words exactly With a grimace, the man put down the telephone. Like many of those of honour, the soldier disliked using power at someone else’s command.
He enjoyed, however, the authority that came with his rank; he took an almost physical pleasure from instructing others. He just preferred it when it was his orders, not others’.
The man looked out of the tent at the wooded forest before him.
Somewhere out there, hidden in copses and hollows, behind trees and in shadows, were men he would shortly order to be killed, merely because he had been told to do so.
When he was younger, he might have questioned such a situation, but to even raise the question now would simply hold himself and his men up to ridicule. Or so he believed.
And others believed the same, from the highest to the lowest ranking.
The offence of the enemy was merely to be the enemy. That, they all admitted in the depths of night when no one could know, was also their purpose.
That it was also the tragedy of all those who thought they had honour never even occurred to them, which was, of course, why it was their tragedy.
© Lee Barnett, 2010
This story is part of the 2010 Fast Fiction Challenge, written for the Thirty Days Project. New challenges can be made here.
The Fast Fiction Challenge - The Book; now available from lulu.com and, if you're in the US, via Amazon.com here; 180 of the best fast fiction challenge stories from the first three years' challenges... Buy it now.