Homecoming

(Source)

The man was shuffling along, head down, muttering to himself.

"One foot in front of the other, just keep moving ..."

He was blind to everything around him, but he knew this place, he was close to home, he had roamed these meadows and forests as a boy. Which wasn't really that long ago.

As he moved he thought he smelled smoke, but not like the smoke of a cooking fire, it was something else, an unpleasant smell.

He looked up, there, on the horizon, a column of smoke. He continued to walk, then he felt a hand on his elbow.

He turned to look at his companion, another man, about the same age as himself. "What is it?"

"Do you think it wise to continue towards your village? Maybe we should detour around that smoke ahead, I don't like it. It feels bad."

The man stood up straighter and looked around, checking landmarks, the curve of a slight ridge, a cluster of trees. It all looked so familiar, yet different somehow. He spoke.

"My village is there." he said, pointing towards the smoke column.

His companion shook his head, "Why is there so much smoke? Aren't you the least bit curious?"

The man sighed, "Where else is there to go?"

His companion looked around and said, "Let's think about this for a moment ..."

The man shook his head and started walking again. "I have no place left to go. All I know has been swept away. If the village is gone ..."

"Then so am I."

Thirty minutes later, they could see the village, or rather, what was left of it.

The few remaining dwellings were still burning, smoldering as if they refused to burst into full flames. The man reckoned that the rains of the last few days had soaked the thick thatch of the roofs, the more simple, poorer dwellings had already burnt to the ground.

The man's companion said, "Where is everyone?"

The man sat down heavily on a tree stump, he saw no one, no one at all. Well, no one still alive.

"The enemy has left, there was nothing else for them to do after they destroyed this place. So they must have moved on to the next place." The companion started to move towards the nearest dwelling, then he stopped.

"The villagers are still here ..." the companion's voice sounded small in the face of such wanton carnage. He turned to look at the man who was from this place. He sat, stunned and unmoving.

"We should go."

"Perhaps we should look for survivors ..."

"There will be none, we've seen this before, you and I, we have done this before. Would you leave anyone alive?"

The companion realized the truth of it, no he would not. Survivors could lead to revenge, no, you killed them all.

You left nothing behind.

The man stood up, and rubbed his grubby face, moisture streaked his face as he did so. His companion stared at him for a moment, saying nothing.

The man spoke, "We need to go, there is another village perhaps a day's walk from here, further back in the forest. Perhaps they have been spared."

His companion nodded, "Perhaps."

Shouldering his small parcel of belongings the man began to move off, muttering, "One foot in front of the other, just keep moving ..."

As they moved off, towards the nearby forest, the companion looked back, now he recognized the other smell, burning flesh.

The scene played out above could be from nearly any moment in our species history.

Etruscan soldiers fleeing the Romans? Colonists fleeing their colonial oppressors? Confederates fleeing Sherman's bummers? Russians fleeing the Nazis?

Pick one, any one, it's all the same to those who suffer the Hell that is war.

Yes, I'm in a black mood lately, but this too shall pass.

Pray for peace, prepare for war.

Igitur quī dēsīderat pācem, præparet bellum.¹

¹ Therefore let him who desires peace prepare for war. - Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus - Dē Rē Mīlitārī