Who was the better man?

“I couldn't do it anymore. It has been 8 days in this wilderness” I told to myself, as I sat there healing my wounds. The war was at its peak, bloodshed was inevitable, and we were all succumbing into a mental state where killing a person did not affect us in the moral premise.

I sat there, in my tent, healing my broken arm, jaded.

I stuck needles in and out of my skin, stitching myself together. But I’ve seen so much blood and gore that I could never be able to stitch the broken parts of my heart together ever again, I sighed to myself.

I've seen piles and piles of dead bodies stacked one upon the other, making up a hill of lifeless bodies, their souls so long evaded.

I remembered walking to the camp through the battlefield, seeing innocent bodies lay lifeless like they were punished for a wrong they did not commit.

But I couldn't let my inner self speak for me. I inherited the masquerade of what the military told was true, there was no otherwise.

I touched the picture from my wallet. Shiv, Anita, Shreya and I, Pa and Ma.

“It will be over in some time, we could be all one.” I told them pretending they were listening to my sobs. It put me in a state of histrionic melancholy. I told myself, I won’t let them die like I let him. Tears stood in the brink of my eye as if they were demanding to be released and the pain demanding to be felt, I thought to myself, I could have saved him. That it needn’t be this way. But I chose to ignore it all along.

Thought for such a small life, I wouldn’t bend to the hypothetical, but now I wish I had, I still do wish that I could’ve gone with him to Kashmir. I chose to take my leave while he was sent in my place. Again, just like every other time, it saddened me, but I chose to ignore it.

I could still hear sounds of insects and flies who escaped the bombings, the masquerade of ‘our’ meaning of peace.

The night was quiet and tranquil, as if it was the silence before the storm that was yet to arrive, and the moon shone through the hole in my tent and I sat there, a dark soul under the moonlight. As the pure moonlight poured over me, I mourned for the sins I committed, and I yearned to be as bright once again.

I sat there, I just finished treating my wounds, I sighed, when I heard something.

A rattling sound, of leaves presumably, I guessed it was some animal that sneaked into the war lands from the forest.

Then “BOOOOOMMMM” went an explosion. And then I heard shouting of people, someone had tripped the mine that we set up.

My comrades were already alert and were racing towards the direction of the sound when I came out of my tent with my guns.

One of them looked at me, “You better be fast champ. You’re the best we’ve got at handling arms!”

I ran as fast I could and hid behind a tree, silently, waiting for the enemy to run away when he sees the other soldiers. After a while, I was all worn out and I chose to sit down in the grasslands, then right then, I heard gunfire and some bright light in a distance, not far from where I anticipated my comrades would be. Then I saw someone running through the darkness into the woods.

I tailed him silently, into the woods wherever he went, guessing I would gather Intel on the enemies. But already given that my side was already winning the war, I saw no use to it, but still I followed him. I tailed him silently deep into the woods.

followed him into a clearing, unto a heath of land, the moon shone its silver glows through the trees and the light fell to the ground illuminating that one part of what seemed to be eternal darkness.

He stopped there. He turned around and said,

“You can come out Aashikh” in a voice that sounded so familiar that it flooded me with memories.

“Shi…. Sh.. Shiv?” I managed to whisper.

“And so it turns out, life is funny at times, isn’t it” he walked into the moonlight.

As my eyes adjusted to the hazel hue if his face in the silver moonlight, my heart skipped a beat. My heart rate elevated as man came into view. Then there I saw, a man who once I considered my best friend, who then was rumored to be dead.

“Why? Why did you do this!” I shouted. “Did you know how much it affected me? Do you even remember Shreya?

Why did you do this?”

The broken pieces of my heart, felt this bitter pain, a pain of feeling no pain, the pain that only signaled the missing of something that after many years which I acknowledged right now. I was melancholic.

“Aashikh” he called out, which only added to my pain.

“You want to know why I did that. Abandon you all?” He waited for a response. I was too weak to give one; I had to wake up from that shock yet. I stood there, watching a dead man alive.

“I went away, because I saw degeneracy amongst you. Not on you or Shreya, but others. You were all morally corrupt.

The motive you are all fighting for is against the common good. And the collective need of the many outweighs the needs of the few and the needs of the one too.” He stood there, watching me dumb founded.

“I did that because I saw a better world if I fought for these people, and I might change the way we live after all, throwing away the customs to achieve a better tomorrow. And I do have the opponent fit for me after all.”

“But why? Why do the customs matter more to you than your best friend and a falsely widowed wife”

I managed to mutter.

“WHY? I just told you that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. I chose to renounce you all for the land that gives us soldiers the right to live.

You fight for the lords and commanders; I am fighting for a force far superior, the people.”

“In a land forsaken like this one military is the monarch and that cannot be changed. We might as well follow orders and bake the bread! Don’t do this to yourself, don’t do this to us!” I shouted.

“Aashikh, Aashikh, you are still the same, you weigh your heart over the mind.” He called out.

“Maybe, it is time to change. You and I, one on one. The survivor is deemed to be worthy of his ideals. And given that you are just as talented as me, I don’t know the outcome of this fight.”

My heart skipped a beat again.

“No! Why do you want this!? Does this have to turn out this way?” I cried.

“I’m afraid yes. I’ll be your opponent. Wanna do it the old way?” He replied.

There was silence for a minute, at least from both of us. The symphony of the flies seemed to engulf the forest behind us.

After some time, I dropped my gun. And he dropped his. The thudding sound of the revolver was the only sound in the local distance.

He took out his knife. It was sharp and smooth, I could see the reflection of the moon in it, broken, incomplete yet tranquil.

The moon knew what it meant to be human, to be lonely, lost and made of imperfections.

I took my knife out slowly, just as sharp, just as smooth.

I made up my mind, it is one way or the other, but a part of me didn’t want to do it. A part of me wished that it didn’t turn out this way.

Memories of our time in the training camp flashed before my eyes. We were the same, why did he have to turn out this way? I wondered.

I remembered telling him

“I would never die by some coward who set up something like a barb, who hadn’t the guts to fight me”

when he saved me from a barb. I remember us saving each other every time one or the other was stuck in a trap.

We started walking in circles around the heath of land. Knives ready to be swung at each other with might that both our hearts couldn’t handle. I saw it in the edge of his eyes too. I saw his soul no longer gripping to his body, ready to leave, just like he saw in my eyes.

I knew he didn’t want the fight, but I couldn’t stop him either.

We started reciting the words. We sang it together just like we did all the time. The poem we both were first inspired by.

“I was the better at getting and keeping

you were the better at spend and spend

I was the better at grubbing and heaping

But who was the better man in the end?”

We came at each other with full force, running with our blades to sing their song now.

Within seconds, we were again in the corner of the heath, my hand was bleeding, so was his cheek.

we went in circles again,

“I was the better at improvisation

you were the better at pillaging a troy

I was the better at spinning the plates

you were the better at search and destroy

But who was the better man old boy?

who was the better man?”

We went at each other once again, just like we always did, only now, with an intent to kill. As our blades sung their verses, my blade bathed in his blood and his in mine. We both knew the last verse was coming and it will soon decide who stands alive.

But just as we got to the other side of the heath, I did something and that changed his tranquil look on his face

I cried out

“ Now that we come down to it

relatives grieving

Now that the story seems fit

Now that we are leaving

Now that you are finally willing to hear

what I was meaning to tell for years and years

and years

that you were the better man, my friend”

By the time I finished, he came running at me, but it was too late, his blood on my blade was one with mine,

my vision blurred as I felt my blood ooze out of my body, I pierced myself with the knife and there I lay helpless in his lap, with him crying

“Why? Why did you do it?”

I managed to utter

“You were the better man, my friend,

you were the better man, in the end.”

It was over. I finished recalling everything that happened today, and I’ve made my life worth the while dying for this man, I came to terms with my conscience, as I closed my eyes, and never opened them again.