Sep 30, 2021
How to Change the World. Chapter Twelve. War and Peace.
Twelfth Post
You may not feel inclined to follow me after all you have learned about me, and are yet to learn when reading my autobiography, and I do not wish to be followed, for a revolution leading to a true, interactive global democracy should have no leader, just as true democracies should have no leaders; only ambassadors who truly represent a nation’s people. I am only here to point the way, and it is up to you to decide whether or not to embark upon the journey, find another route to the world you wish to live in, or rest complacent with the way things stand.
I only hope I have the wisdom necessary to evoke peaceful revolt, and that my character, flawed from the tender age of six, through no fault of my own, is increasingly sound as I ascend to higher ground. I am determined to succeed, and will work until the day I die, in one way or another, and I am prepared to die fighting on my feet rather than defeated upon my knees.
I have fought my way through a sea of haters and saboteurs armed with nothing but a pen for many years, and I will employ the same pen in my mission to encourage a peaceful global revolution leading to a paradise on Earth. I hope you will arm yourselves too, with pens, and rise to the challenge humankind are faced with.
Ideally; an intellectual revolution requires pens, not swords, for both have the same devastating impact when brandished correctly. There is no need to jab anyone with your pen, unless you are the citizen of a nation governed by an oppressive regime. Even so; unless the situation is critical, perhaps it is wise to employ patience in such circumstances, and work to sway the opinions of those who have been brainwahed into becoming loyal citizens to suffocating governance — especially those employed to protect a governmental regime’s dominance, such as the police and armed forces — so there is a greater chance of an uprising of the majority, resulting in a governance that is servile to the people. A pencil may be employed too, for art also has the power to evoke change, and I will use both in this post, which will cover the topic of war and peace.
We have not learned from the past mistakes of a First and Second World War; war has not brought peace to the world. On the contrary, each war seems a catalyst for further wars, and each of a greater intensity than the last as a consequence of advances in military technology. In fact, the terrible mistakes of a First and Second World War, and more wars besides, seem to be encouraging humankind to make a third, colossal, truly absurd mistake — a Third World War — which may destroy all life and the planet upon which all life lives.
President George Bush’s wife, Barbara Bush, said something which struck my bell of truth:
“War is not nice” — she said.
Barbara Bush is quite right; war is not nice. War is horrifying, barely understandable, and it is not required to keep peace any more than screaming is to maintain quiet. Yet, those governing humankind claim the threat of war is a strategy for maintaining peace on Earth, even though the Earth and its life may be destroyed the moment the farcical strategy fails, in a Third World War. So, it would seem wise to replace such idiocy with an intelligent alternative, regarding the manner political friction is dealt with, which will not lead to the Earth’s destruction and the death of all life.
War is not nice, it cannot be considered intelligent or civilised, and it certainly isn’t funny, yet humour has been a beam of light upon which humankind have ridden through many dark times, including times of war, and without it we may have fallen into a gloomy abyss of despair.
Or would that have been a bad thing, since we may have found a way to clamber from it, if we had not found reason to laugh when it would have seemed more appropriate to cry? But then, what would the world be like without humour? Perhaps we would have clambered from the gloomy abyss of despair to find ourselves standing upon the barren lands of a dull, humourless existence?
However crucial humour may be, perhaps it prevents us from considering our destiny in a sober manner, and it does seem to be stretching the quality to the point of fracture when applied to certain topics.
Humour’s healing abilities, and tendency to raise spirits, are battling harder than ever with the dark power of our troubled world, and should a man-made apocalypse fall upon us, it may be laughter would only be heard from those with unfathomable depths of jollity, and it would have an empty, hollow timbre, as though emerging from the vast, tiled spaces of a Victorian asylum.
I was living in Scotland during the Falkland’s war, and read an article in a newspaper praising the humour of the home forces. The article explained how important humour was to them, and gave examples of their wit:
“I’ve lost my legs! I’ve lost my legs!”– a distraught soldier screamed, after stepping on a land mine.
“No. you haven’t; they are over there!” — his comrade had replied. I remember laughing uncertainly, and then frowning heavily for the rest of the day.
A plate hung in the hallway of my parent’s home at the time, with a Captain Bruce Bairnsfather’s cartoon printed upon it, in which a young soldier sits astride a massive bomb, during the First World War, while attempting to diffuse it with a hammer and chisel.
According to the caption beneath, his friend, standing next to him, is saying — “give it a good ‘ard ‘un, Bert; you can generally ‘ear ’em fizzing a bit first if they are a-goin’ to explode.”
I remember frowning at that too, even though it was supposed to be funny, and at the ‘Carry On’ films aired around that time, such as ‘Carry on England’ — a comedy based on the Second World War, which was one of many comedies based on a tragedy where around seventy-five million people lost their lives.
The Cold War held the world in its icy grasp at the time. The hands of the doomsday clock, symbolising the end of the world through a nuclear holocaust, were almost clasped in prayer. I was afraid we were all going to die, and wondered if we were all supposed to die laughing.
Although humankind have managed to squeeze many a laugh out of war, I thought then, as I do now, that war is neither funny nor nice, and I wish we will begin to laugh at things that are truly funny, and only despise that which should be truly despised.
You will find a short story posted below, which I wrote some years ago to express the horror of war, and humankind’s inability to learn from past mistakes. The drawing illustrating this post is a design for a poster I would like to make someday. It seems a little crushed at the foot of the image because the paper wasn’t long enough. The final work will be fractionally longer. It has been created using pen and pencil.
You may find the composition interesting. Below the text, World War 3, the compostion is X Y Z, and an inverted Z, each superimposed upon another. Or, the composition is X, Y, Z, or inverted Z, depending on which aspect of the composition you focus upon, or all four at once, when considering the image in its entirety. Although I prefer not to over explain a work, and each may arrive at their own conclusions regarding its meaning, the composition may symbolise, to some, the tragic conclusion of history books recording humankind’s advance.
As always; please feel free to copy and paste the writing into a file on your pc or phone, and so forth, and print it out if you like. Share it with your family and friends. Leave copies in public places for others to read. You are also welcome to the artwork.
To remind you; you would not be stealing — you would be receiving a gift, and I would be delighted if you accept. You will find the book cover for the collection of short stories in the third post.
Thank you
Martin Sharratt
The President of the World
Should We Remember by Martin Sharratt
From a Collection of Thought Stories by Martin Sharratt.
This edition published on medium.com by Martin Sharratt.
This edition copyright © 2021 by Martin Sharratt.
All rights reserved. No portion of the story Should We Remember may be reproduced for sale, in any form, without permission from the publisher. No portion of the artwork War and Peace may be reproduced for sale, in any form, without permission from the publisher.
Ink and graphite drawing War and Peace by Martin Sharratt © All rights reserved. No portion of the drawing may be reproduced for sale, in any form, without permission from the publisher.
The original artwork is for sale. You will find it in my online gallery:
Should We Remember by Martin Sharratt
Everyone on Earth experienced the phenomenon at the same time. In the beginning, there were those who took anti-depressants, with the hope they would relieve the incredible angst it caused, but they didn’t help at all. Some took sleeping pills and tried to sleep through it, but their dreams were as troubled as their waking thoughts. People drank and took every drug known to humankind, in an effort to escape the torment, but their effects only worsened the feeling they wished to escape from.
No one knew what had caused it or why it had occurred. The phenomenon seemed so inexplicable that science and spirituality merged. Scientists even turned to astrologers for answers, who suggested an alignment of the planets had triggered the event. The theories were endless, and ranged from everyone connecting to an eternity of human consciousness to angels releasing the sorrow they had been carrying for humankind to fall upon us. Some said it had happened to remind us of our past, because we do not learn from experience, and I think that’s the best explanation so far.
Sorrow is not a word to describe the feeling, though. Neither melancholy nor sadness is suffice. The feeling grew so deep that it became debilitating. Some committed suicide to escape the incredible anguish it caused, while others endured it as one might a terrible migraine, with the hope it would eventually pass. The world almost ceased to function. Shops were open for a few hours, at most, and only supermarkets and grocers, since no one felt like shopping while they suffered so.
The gates of time had been thrown open, and the memories of those who had suffered throughout history invaded the minds of all who lived. Once the memories of the dead started to permeate the consciousness of the living, they did not stop.
The first recollection acted as a catalyst for the sorrow, which intensified with every fraction of a life relived. The memories were unexpected, yet they seemed natural, somehow.
For example; you might find yourself thinking of the slave trade, which would transgress to an experience of being a slave during the era of slavery. Yet; the memory provided an extra dimension, since you were the slave, and felt as the slave had felt, and you also experienced compassion for the slave, as yourself, once the memory had passed.
The Internet was flooded with accounts of such memories. One wrote of an African American, who had been chased by a lynch mob and hung from a tree. They described the terror of being pursued, the excruciating pain of death, and their own sense of shame when they considered what had happened.
Every tear of sorrow flowed anew, and every broken heart beat again. The betrayal of a friend, the savage cruelty of a parent — the tormented memories of the dead caused the hearts of the living to writhe in agony.
I saw his sons dead, with their throats cut. I felt his — the father’s — heart break inside me as though it were my own. My tears flowed as his. The world became the hell he sensed it as, and then his memory vanished, but it became mine, which I will never forget, as he did not. I have lived through an episode of his life, which enabled me to understand the horrors of war in this time of peace. That was my first memory of a past life, and now, when I look back, I think I was given an easy one to gently introduce me to the experience. I know another will come soon, and wonder if it will be the one that kills me. I wonder whether the whole human race will die of broken hearts.
Time seems slow, somehow, and my actions laboured, as if I have suddenly aged. I look out of the window of my apartment onto a deserted street, usually flowing with a river of pedestrians, and wonder if everyone feels as heavy as I.
There’s a big wooden building at the end of the street; a garage of some kind where they fix vehicles, and I wonder if it’s open. I press my face against the window and squint down the road, and see a distorted image of the barn-shaped building through the glass. The doors are closed.
I am inside an old barn with the people of my village. The doors are closed. My grandson is standing in front of me, with his head tucked within the folds of my coat. He is beside himself with fear, and crying in great wracking sobs. I am rubbing and patting his shoulders to comfort him and staring at the soldiers who have herded us here, like cattle.
Their demeanour is one and the same. Each wears a blank expression, yet verging on sadness. Their eyes flick around the villagers, without resting upon anyone for long. Their guns point towards us. Some people are crying, but no one tries to escape, because some have been shot for doing so, like my son and his wife.
When soldiers begin dragging bales of hay from a stack and spreading them around the barn, I know what will happen. I wonder if I should just run and be shot, but I don’t know what would become of my grandson, so I stay where I am and pray for a miracle.
The soldiers pour gasoline over the bales and the floor as they retreat towards the barn’s doors, which are grating open upon howling hinges, as if warning of the hell soon to come. Once the soldiers are outside, the doors of the barn start to swing closed, and waves of movement spread through the gathering of villagers.
A chatter of short, sharp exclamations of fear and disbelief cut through the putrid air as the whole village swarms towards them, but it’s too late. I see flames erupt and spread, and turn to run in the opposite direction of their advance.
I am at the back of the barn, shielding my grandson from the flames. He is trying to squirm his way out of the barn through a gap between the walls and the earth. His head and shoulders are already out and my very soul shouts encouragement, but I hear a gunshot and his body starts to twitch.
Screaming is filling my ears, and incredible pain is cutting through my thick, winter jacket. The screaming is my own, mixed with everyone I have ever known. I beat my flaming hair and slap my body and legs until I only burn. The agony pushes every thought from my mind. I cannot see, and stumble around blindly until I fall to the ground. The last sound I hear is the screaming, and my last sensation an agony that cuts through to my burning, broken heart.
I don’t know how long I have been lying here, on the floor, or when I stopped crying. I don’t think I have slept; I think I have been lying here all morning, numb from shock.
I manage a late breakfast — some toast — and stare vacantly through a window at a grey sky. I’m nearly out of food, and know I’ll have to go to the shops soon. I think how difficult such a simple task is during wartime, and of the Second World War, and a woman making her way back from the shops, in London, during the blitz.
The battle rages and the bodies stink. A hand of a child lies in the gutter, and I hope it is not from my own. Someone passes me as I hurry home, which I hope to find still there.
“These streets could do with a bloody good sweep!” — he laughs.
I know he’s mad; everyone is losing their minds. I trip over some rubble and land on all fours; feeling sharp stones and shards of glass biting into my hands and knees. The loaf of bread I was carrying tumbles off ahead of me, before being grabbed by a young boy, who sets off running without looking back.
Amidst the intermittent, staccato thunder of war, a bomb lands on a building ahead, which coughs a cloud of brick-filled dust across the street. Some people have disappeared within it, and I know they will be dead, or wish they were, because I have seen the same before.
A woman’s head has burst like a watermelon, but her face is intact; dusty and surprised. She is a neighbour; her name is Lilian. I turn what was once a corner of a building and look up to the third floor, where I live, but my gaze only recedes into the sky before falling to the front door of the building, which stands open and upright amongst the rubble. In a daze, I walk through it, even though there is no need.
I dig through bricks until my fingernails have gone. I dig until morning, until I find my children, recognisable only by their clothes. I pull them from the debris and hold them in my arms, and scream. My heart is a gaping wound — sliced in two — with the delicate love within spilling out into the dust and rubble that had once been our home.
Sobs wrack my body, as though grief is teaching me to breathe, and I whisper — “why, why, why?” — over and over again. I look up to the heavens, but there is no answer; it almost seems as if the heavens ask — “why?” — with me.
Eventually, I curl up, exhausted, holding two pieces of crushed meat and bone that were once my joyful children. Strangely, just as I am drifting into sleep, I sense happiness through the incredible sorrow — that the boy took the bread, because we don’t need it.
The memory passes, and I whisper — “why, why, why?” — through the sobs wracking my body. I know her now, even though I have never met her. She may have died before I was born. Eventually, I fall asleep, holding my pillows as though her dead children, and dream of a faraway place.
I cannot remember the whole dream, but wake crying, and my head aches. I place an ibuprofen on my tongue, swill it into my empty stomach with a glass of water, and slump into a chair at the kitchen table.
I rest my head upon my forearms and sense an incredible weight within me. Physically, I am slim, but the gravity of sorrow pulls me to some distant point below — the centre of grief, of despair, of a deep, heavy melancholy without a name. I raise my head, pull the laptop towards me and switch it on. There aren’t so many accounts of past lives today. There have been less every day, even though there have been more experiences.
I think back to my childhood, and search for a happy memory to take me away from the misery. I remember when I was a little boy of about six, playing in the scrubland surrounding my home with my friends. I run, with my little legs gently pounding the soft earth beneath my feet, and laughing like my stomach is full of bubbles. I hear shouting behind me. My friends are telling me to stop and come back, but I want to run.
Everything stops suddenly within a numb silence, and I watch my home, and my friends — who are looking up at me from some distance below — the Earth and the sky circle slowly around and round. I spin within a dust cloud until my body is shaken by a thump, which knocks the breath out of me. I lie on my side, with a piercing whistling in my ears, while opening and closing my mouth, trying to breathe. I see my friends running towards me.
I turn my head so I can see them as they gather around me. They all have their hands over their mouths, and their eyes are wide with shock. They look funny and I want to laugh, but cough instead, and sit up as I start to catch my breath. I don’t understand what I’m seeing. My legs aren’t there, and there’s a lot of blood coming out of me. I feel tired and lie down. I smile at my friends and say — “I’m tired” — but I don’t hear anything; only the whistling, which fades into the silence of eternal sleep.
His death fades into my life, and I cry. I remember his friends as though they were my own, and miss them as he could not. I want to go there — to crawl on my hands and knees and search for every mine lying hidden in the ground.
I stand up and reach down to touch my legs; grateful for their existence in a way I have never been. I pull on my shoes, as if it should be impossible, and walk from my apartment and thump down the stairs as though a dead weight.
No one is in the local shop — only the shopkeeper — who sits on a chair behind the counter with his head in his hands, weeping. I take coffee, milk, bread, some cheese and butter, and place them carefully on the counter. His head raises slowly, and he stands. He leans across the counter, as I lean towards him.
We hold each other tightly, as though long-lost brothers reunited, and cry. The sorrow of eternity surrounds us. I don’t want to let him go, and know he senses the same need for comfort. We stand like this for a long time, as though we are waiting for the whole world to join our embrace.
