Fight - A Moral Greyscale by Jennifer

A Moral Greyscale

The accelerated lash of a trained soldier's boot on my left cheek, and the momentary yet lethal darkness sends me down onto the perilous base of the invaded trench.

The stalemate had been broken.

In the frenzy I taste the thick blood of my bitten tongue, metallic like the deafening barrage of overhead gunfire. It is only a split second before I recover and search frantically for the soldier who had attacked me. Letting go of a single life will result in the death of many more.

I spot the soldier's pale complexion over ten metres away, his skin a stark contrast against the muddy earth which lines the trench, against the dark green uniform which crowds the narrow area ... against the rest of us.

"GET HIM!" I bellow in agony as his shrinking figure recedes into our living quarters. 

Then the reluctantly anticipated fire of a machine gun, the howls and shrieks of combat mates violently ambushed. It is difficult not to picture the carnage which will await my return. Blood and revolting gore, but this time of my friends ... my friends, of whom we had sworn an eternal allegiance.

The culminating fury erupts within me as the crazed scream of a mad fighter - and my paralysis shatters. I storm through the length of the trench with a regained strength, treading on the hands and shoulders of my fallen army.

He is still there, the cold satisfaction of murder plastered over his white ghost of a face. 

He is white. Just like those who had slaughtered my village. White.

Charging towards him, I tackle him to the ground with the power of countless memories of loss. He loses his machine gun, as I did my parents. My friends. My elders. Everything was gone.

I strike his stomach like a frenzied animal, drawing on the forgotten strength of pain. He tries to strike me again, this time with the dagger attached to the side of his shoe. He misses. 

He sends his foot flying against the stone surface, dislodging the earthly remains of the trench wall which topples over us. Pushing us closer together, urging us to exact our revenge.

The silver dagger dislodges. He wails as the blade slides to within a few metres' distance, sending us into a frantic brawl. He elbows my thigh sharply, temporarily disabling me as he scampers toward the blade. His hand is merely centimetres from the blade before I clasp his neck, strangling him as I drag him along the blood-stained floor.

I reach for the blade, but the solace of cold metal in my hand does not arrive. I almost forget myself - whipping around, I force the dagger against the soldier's white neck.

Against a boy's white neck. His horror stricken eyes match chillingly, incongruously, with the snicker of murder on his mouth. He has aged too much. 

It will take only a flick of the wrist to send this boy to the hellish suffering he deserves. 

He is white. I am black. White, black, white, black, white, black ...

Author's Note: 515 words. Sorry about any parallels between this story and the first creative I wrote on this blog (Chastity - My Kind). I think I tried to refrain from specifically using the phrase 'my kind' haha ... don't remember if I succeeded :|

I was originally going to end it with something like white, black, something brown then something about how there's always a bit of each in each other (yin and yang) or some deep philosophical statement. As expected, that never happened.

I should probably add more to this author's note. On another note (do you see what I did there? I get amused by my own sense of humour), I need to sleep. I realise that I only ever post here right before I go to bed .........

edit: In case you thought I was pulling that lunacy about white, black and brown from nowhere, it's me reading too much into the colours of the cat and dog :P

Fight - 99 Luftballons by Alicia

99 Luftballons

1139 hours, Vandenberg Air Base, CA.

“Sir, are you sure?”

“Are you here to question my orders, or to follow them, Lieutenant?” Commanding Officer Phillip Savoy barked, his hands tightening into fists by his thighs.

The officer beside him assumed an expression of obedience, but not before Savoy glimpsed the contempt and fear. They were in the middle of a war here, and it was not the time for frightened officers to forget their place.

 “Launch missilery action Lima Alpha.”

The order was repeated and echoed across the room until it was transmitted into the radio communication system.

“Echo Romeo Tango, launching Lima Alpha countdown in 5...”

 Across the fiery evening sky, missiles streamed, trailing a blazing pure white tail of steam towards unsuspecting destruction.

“ETI two minutes…”

***

1840 hours, East Germany.

“Maria, let’s go home.”

Maria jumped off the small construction of torn brick and items that people simply didn’t want anymore. Her patchy red shoes scuffed against an old wooden doll that had lost the glimmer of its maker’s love. The long pleat of her skirt brushed past a heavy scorched leather suitcase weighed down by a mountain of memories and lost faith. In the glimmering heat of the sunset, they glowed with an unnatural presence as if warning them 

to forget, or was it to remember?

Her younger brother, Friedrich, ran around her in circles, his head thrown back and lips parted as he gazed upwards to the horizon, towards their design. Already, their art was far away. The fluorescing eyes of streetlamps as they made their way down the Straße hissed in anticipation of night.

More eyes began to emerge from darkened alleyways as cats slinked outwards, marking their way around the two children in silence and care. 

Fifty stars came shooting out of the sky.

Dogs could be heard in the distance, barking in paranoia about the ninety-nine red balloons the two children had set free into the air.

What stupid dogs they were. 

~OvO~

Author's Note: 330 words. I know, I cheated with the stimulus a bit. But I did this story as a roughly (highly inaccurate) historical fiction because I'm trying to write my After the Bomb story and I'm getting really stuck.

In case it wasn't apparent, the dogs are the Americans, and for some reason, cats are Germans. This is highly inaccurate. The fifty stars are the missiles, it's a bit hyperbolic but it seemed fittingly American. 

AH! The name of this and the story idea itself, is all entirely based on the song called 99 Luftballons by Nena. It's an anti-war song written sometime during the Cold War, which translates to 99 Red Balloons in English. 

• Strasse (or Straße) is German for street. 
• ETI is Estimated Time Impact, although I just made that up. 
• The times seem really weird, being 1139 and then 1840, but it's apparently a 7 hour difference between America and Germany. I just didn't bother checking specifically for California. 

Fight - the stimulus!

Thanks to Maggie! :)

Because this stimulus is so specific, it's okay if you don't really...use it... But don't be discouraged! Give it a go, it'll test the limits of your adaptability. :) Don't forget, there are metaphorical ways of including it.