The Sickness that Destroyeth in the Noonday

I hated them. I always hated them. The ones from the village further along the river. How could they have done it? What were they thinking the day they attacked us, leaving so many of us dead or injured?

            I remember it like it was yesterday, they day they came. The first snow of winter had just settled upon the hills and the trees, and the river had just begun to slow its course due to the cold. Great fires had been lit in the hearths of many homes to ward off the chill. The village storyteller had, the night before, told of a great war many ages before, with great warriors and the families they had left to defend. It was a tale of courage and honor.

            I, a child at the time, heard the shouts of the men of our village upon seeing them approach, carrying swords and torches. The sun had just barely risen over the horizon, shining a dull red light across the white snow. I went to the window to see what was going on outside. My mother, having seen them, pulled me away from the window and led my sister and I into a small corner, where she hoped we might remain unseen if they were not defeated before they reached our house.

            I heard from others later what had happened. The invaders came over the stream, and our men barely had time to arm themselves before the invaders reached the first house on the edge of town. I could, huddled in the corner, hear the noise of the clash as the two opposing forces met. I had heard of battles before. I, as a child who had listened too long to the storyteller’s tales, was rather exited and enthusiastic about the prospect of seeing men who had been courageous in battle, had faced the enemy for the honor of the people.

            They had expressed their complaint to us before. We had better access to the river, they said, such that we had an advantage in trade with the nearby villages. They said that we were depriving them of this advantage by keeping our portion of the river to ourselves. They had had a bad harvest that year; their portion of the stream was no worse than our own. And yet they attacked us to gain it. Their misery was their own, why would they inflict it upon us?

            My father, grabbing what weapons he could, ran out of the house. From what others told me later, he held up valiantly against the invaders, until someone, attacking unexpectedly from behind him, stabbed him through with his sword. After the battle, I came upon my father’s corpse lying upon the cold snow, his lifeless eyes still open. What had he ever done to them, that they should have wanted him to be like that? Did they not know that there were those who loved him, who depended upon him?

            There we sat in that small corner. The door burst open, and a man barged into our small house. Taking a log from the fire, he cast it into the middle of the room, setting the place ablaze. My mother rushed to stop him, and in the struggle he killed her. Again, how could this have been? How could that life that had been so strong as to give life to my sister and I have been held in so little value by these people, these animals that valued the trade of a mere river above something so precious. The flame of life that had ignited our own was extinguished.

            I, enraged, grabbed a small knife that was nearby and ran at him. He, having not seen us, did not expect the attack. He fell to the ground, the knife lodged firmly in his side. As the house began to erupt in flames, I saw him look at me, a sad gleam in his eyes. Then that monster died.

            My sister and I rushed from the house before the smoke became intolerable. As we got safely away, I looked back and saw the house finally collapse in a plume of dark smoke, drifting upwards in the cool air of that terrible morning.

            The men of the town had finally managed to drive them back, but not without loss of many lives and many homes. The leaders of our village created an agreement with them, setting strict boundaries between us and setting the harshest of penalties should those be violated in future. And thus we made peace, a terrible peace with those that had so harmed us. I could not believe that we had done so when I first heard about it. What a betrayal of those we lost to so readily make peace.

            I vowed to myself then that should the agreement break, should we go to war, I would make them pay for what they had done to me, leaving us two orphans, taking from us those that we loved most dearly. My father’s brother and his wife took us in, and there I grew up. My life centered on that one passion: the destruction of those who had so wronged me and those I love.

            The seasons came and went in our little village. Year after year would we celebrate the great festivals, at which the storyteller would tell of the great events of our history that we were commemorating. He was such a lively fellow. One was entranced almost from the first note he plucked from his lyre. He was the life of our town, helping us to see who we were, what we had managed to create over the generations. He sang also of who we were not. We were not the people of the other village.

            I made many friends, with whom I would practice long hours, training for any war that might come. How I desired that war might come. We would talk late into the night of the storyteller’s tales, and of how we would someday show ourselves to be their rightful heirs in glorious battle with some terrible enemy. In my imagination that enemy always wore the face of the man who had invaded our house that day.

            The day I had so long awaited finally came. A small hunting party from the other village had, wandering on a dark night near the beginning of spring, come across the boundary that had been set up. They had killed the storyteller who had that evening been walking along the boundary, studying details of that part of the forest that he could weave into the telling of one of his great tales.

            A meeting was called in the central house of the village. Some there, believing this crime to actually have been accidental (gullible fellows, as though that could ever be the case, knowing them), argued that we should maintain the peace with the other village. I stood up, and loudly condemned the other village, calling for their utter destruction. I argued it before them. It was as much as they deserve for the crimes they had done to us so many years ago. They had, furthermore, just taken the very soul of our town from us, the man who told us who we were. I knew who we were: we were not them. Others at the assembly took up my call for battle, and within the hour we sang again the war songs that had been sung by the great heroes when they marched out to war, raising our spirits and readying us for battle.

            We set out for the other village. The sun that had arisen upon the knowledge of the storyteller’s death would not set before we had avenged him. This new spring would see the death of those that had, in that long-ago winter, brought such death and pain to our people.

The sun shown above us in the noonday, bright and golden, illuminating the sky.

            I joined the first wave of the attack. We brought down a few small houses, killing their inhabitants before they could respond. A few men had seen us as we came up, and so tried to hold us off from entering the main part of that village. There was one man, of great strength, who was managing to hold off two of my friends at once. Seeing that he was distracted in the fight with them, I ran behind him. Before he could turn around, I had plunged my sword through his back. I laughed to myself at how fittingly my father was avenged.

 I ran ahead. The man who had invaded our house many years before had had the right idea in one respect: the quickest way to destroy them was to set fire to their houses, one by one, and let the flame do the rest of the work. Flame spread rapidly, if not constantly dowsed with water.

            I barged through the door of one house, and looked for the hearth fire. A log burned there. I ran for it, and was about to throw it into the main room of the place when I felt someone grab my arm to stop me. It was some woman who lived there, feebly trying to keep me from destroying the place. I tore my arm from her grasp, throwing the burning log in the process. I grabbed my knife, and stabbed her. What was she to me? She was just one of them, one of those who had made my life a misery. She fell to the floor.

            I heard a cry from the corner. A young boy ran at me as I turned to face the sound. He grabbed a knife from a nearby table. Before I could react, he had stabbed me. I fell to my knees from the pain. He had killed me.

            I looked at him. There he was, crying at the death of his mother. How was it that I only saw it at this moment, at my very moment of death? What had I done? I looked at the child and in him I saw myself all those years before, bemoaning my mother’s death, pledging that I would never forgive the monster that had done such a thing. I looked at him, as life passed from me slowly. Forgive me, I thought, forgive me for what I have done. The boy went back to the corner to help his sister to the door before the house fell to the flames. The house collapsed just as they got outside.

            As the ruin of the house began to burn around me, burning me and all of my hatred with it, producing a little light in the noonday sun, I had but one thought, one prayer: Child, forgive me for what I have done, lest you become me.