blood on my boots!

“So how about the sugar, sir” asked me, as she poured the steaming black tea to a tarred metallic mug. “No..not much” my mushy reply was just loud enough to reach her, in a room that was otherwise dead mute. The tired rays from that aged lone incandescent lamp, hanging from the flimsy roof, was not adding much to the visibility. A few misshaped crummy cans and a creaky coat, which gave frequent shrieks like the senseless chirping of some grayed soul, were all that I could see in the shady iced space.

Those greasy rumpled pieces of cloths that wrapped her body spoke about the littleness of her life. The sweaty whiff that she carried around like an aura of identity reminded me of the Doppler effect as she came near me  with the a tea mug, served with the most unappealing pair of feminine palms that I had ever come across. Those nails were soiled and broken, it appeared like the dead dried petals of a flower which once existed and has lived through a tragic tale. And the odd piece that refused to merge with the existing air was me, an armed man in that prestigious baggy green.

 “Sir, clean your boots” she passed me a piece of cloth, which was surprisingly clean, unlike the texture of the surrounding that I was in. I grabbed the offered piece and looked down to my boots. The leather was all filthy and muddy. I started with my cleaning act and found a few stains, too dark and dried to be moped off, cold ugly stains of blood. It kept surviving my aggressive efforts and stayed there like some disturbing truths, which keeps springing up the more you try to stamp it down.

“That stain…it won’t go” her words made me to stop with that act and I shook my head with a very reluctant smile. Somehow those weak words gave a sort of nasty prick to my ego cells. “You stay here alone”? I asked to break that annoying silence which was flooding over us. “Yes, now a days I live here..alone” she continued with her reply, with the words progressively trembling down. “my family….my man..my kids…all are gone. War!!..it ate up everything” and then silence reigned over again with its vexing roar rippling through my spine.

“Dad, why you keep killing people” once my four year old angel asked me and then my answer was clear, and a proud one “honey, I do it for our country” and then she asked me, “Country??...what is that??...the thing that we see in the map..like a solved jigsaw puzzle?”. I just nodded my head and smiled and to be frank I didn't know what to reply.

There are some words which seems simple and plain at a glance but once you doubt its sense, you find yourselves in a messy maze, that doesn't have a way out. The word “patriotism” is supposed to mean the love or care one has for his nation. And then this simple definition is put on a “word dissection table” and there the problem starts. The last word of the statement, the pivotal phrase, a nation!! What does it mean?? Or what are things that make up a nation?? Is it the fellow beings around or is it is just the mass of land roped in more by political reasons rather than cultural or geographical, the piece of jigsaw that my baby angel referred to. I’m not sure about the answer, but as I look around, most of the so called patriotic acts point me to the later meaning. And even the much hailed and dutiful job that I claim to be doing, more often than not, ends up serving the land more than the people.

I kill creatures that look very much like me. Ones who walk, eat, smile and cry like me. Let alone the vengeance or spite, I hardly know the face of the ones whom I slay. Most of them still remain as a stealthy sound and that awful thud that follows my gun shot, nothing more to me, just strangers who never came out of darkness. Then I see corpse, wearing uniforms similar to mine, but different badge stamped to it. That makes them my enemies and thus justifies the glorified ruthless feat. Then I walk over their blood in pride.

And here, a wilted woman, with no privileged badges or arms, left cold and unguarded, holding on to a collage of diffused glimpses of a family and a story that once she processed.  I don’t know which team has this under their score list and I even doubt whether the stains on my boots falls somewhere in this scoop. Like most things that we do, this also follows an age old doctrine of unknown origin and we keep living by it, no matter how senseless it may appear. At times man seems to be the most hilarious creation in the planet, as most of his acts and ways are muddled and dump. The role that clowns play in a ring, unexplainable and crazily barbaric.

I ended my lone tour through the woods of thoughts as the last sip of tea swept down my throat. I heard the gun shots from varied ranges. Some at a distance in the horizon, and some very close around and all had that very bloody meaning, no matter which barrel it belonged to.

I strolled out of that shaky one roomed cottage puzzled with thoughts and realizations. No matter what I think or where I reach with my logic, this play will go on. More canons will roar, more lonely soule will go scattered in dark iced nooks and more boots will go stained.

I searched for the rifle inside my jacket, as I picked something fishy around me, someone’s cunning prowl approaching. My reflex was well trained and oiled and I took the shield behind a tree, with my frigid fingers brushing the trigger, I was all set to receive my enemy from the darkness.

It was still there, gleaming in the moonlight, like the fangs of a snake, hanging out of its mouth, shielding the venomous memoirs behind it…

the blood stains on my boots!!