Flash Fiction by Andy Betz
It always begins the same way. It is noon. The wind is still. The air, clear. I order my driver to proceed slowly. The column of six maintains two vehicle lengths of separation for safety. We have a treeline to the west and tall grass to the east. Both are perfect places for an ambush.
Both, every time, will be.
From the north comes two lines of children, all dressed in white, similar to altar boys on Sunday. Each one holds a single flower. Each one is singing. They sing in harmony. They walk with the precision of soldiers marching, maintaining their place at the sides of the road. My column has sufficient width to pass.
The sequence begins anew with the same onset. The children arrive and I see nothing but innocence, but I do sense impending danger. It is how all disasters begin; too perfect for any other narrative to suffice.
My driver slows when the children are abreast of the Jeeps. They halt their forward progress to surround the Jeeps while continuing their song. From the outside looking in, this looked like a serenade. Their voices never faltered. Their flowers never dropped. It is too picturesque for believability.
Except the children never smile.
That is the tell, the moment the world ends.
From the treeline, I can see the displacement of fifteen riflemen and one mortar. From the tall grass emerges a squad of teens with pistols and machetes. We have the firepower to level these partisans, but only at the expense of the lives of the children.
We knew the stakes and still the children kept singing, kept their flowers aloft, never moved, and never (not even once) smiled.
I imagine different scenarios as to how this should have ended. I order my men to protect the children. When the rifles exploded, the children fell into our arms, shot in the back, freezing us where we stood, leaving us unable to respond.
Each battle lasted a few moments, perhaps a mere minute. As I fall, I fall on the children who fell first, their voices now silenced, sacrificed as pawns. I saw them all die, yet not one cried out in pain. They performed as ordered, never deviating, never smiling; faces void of all emotion.
Some attacks began with my orders for the column to move forward, opening fire on both adjacent flanks. With few of our own casualties, I check on the children (I always see their faces as children, even after all of these years) who never relinquished their positions on the road. Our jeeps made short work on their small frames, easily overcoming their meager resistance. At the next clearing, we took stock of our gains, only then realizing we had won the battle, but lost the war. Those recording the event garnered the moral high ground as their own, relegating our actions as that of a coward, or a butcher, or both.
Each time I relive the events of that day, I wonder what options lay untested, what outcomes remain obscured from view. Within three months, our forces abandoned this part of the globe with a name no foreigner could pronounce, let alone spell. The “winning” side plunged the remaining population into a totalitarian regime advocating genocidal policies. We foresaw this outcome from the onset, but to no avail. These people sacrificed their best hope for their future at the hands of those they could call their own.
I have experienced my nightmare everyday since it occurred. I have made my peace and decided to never experience it again. History will neither exonerate my name nor my actions. My crimes are my own and my 1911 will finally end my suffering.
Lt. William Baker
USMC Retired
Bio: The works of Andy Betz are found everywhere a search engine operates. Andy has written many great things that have been posted to The Yard: Crime Blog. His works can be found HERE.
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