The Ape War

    It's always a lonesome small village since long time ago, and I would love to say  it was a village of serenity and peace. Most of the villagers were old people over the age of 50, where most of the youth had left this lonely place to earn a living in another country.

 

This 'Ape Troop' illustration is available in NFT on OpenSea

    Two years ago, I had ever stayed for a couple of months in this old village. When people called it a ghost town, at the same time I simply preferred to call it a memorable small village and a paradise for peaceful life seekers.

    But now, as my foot set on the dusty road in the village for the first time, I realized…The blackened soil I stepped on was so warm. Smoke billowed here and there and some of the tractors, and even the horse drawn wagon that still widely used here ravaged into debris, charred into smoky wreckage piles. Many houses turned into shapeless, badly damaged and leaving into ruins of bedroom and kitchen. Some others showed the only broken living room.

    Those gave me the horror impression of the nasty war. It left the pathetic emptiness in my soul and dizzying sense of confusion. I knew for sure that the ordinary people of these two neighboring countries had been living side by side in harmony. They were really the sweet and peace loving people. Moreover, they had the same appearance, skin color, ancestry, way of life, hopes, and even the same beliefs. As for their ancestors, I was pretty sure they came from the same ethnicity and descent. Or if there were many cases of mixed blood with other races, then everything had been mixed in such a way that it was already too impossible to trace them.They were like two brothers who live in peaceful and harmony.

    But the heavenly images of peacefulness, now shattered and miserably torn apart by the violent war. The two innocent brothers were now growing up like Abel and Cain who began to recognize envy, hatred, egoism and greed. One thing I believed that it was considered to be a foreign concept to most of them.

    Of course, things had become problematic and this desultory matters were so hard to understand... Until I came to a conclusion... The seed of corrupting the minds of grassroots had been sown by a handful of evil politicians. The damn nasty ambitious people who act like psychopaths who have no respect for life at all.
    These obedient, calm and peace-loving people were now like brainwashed, provoked by the propaganda of deception that contains the fake conflicts and baseless accusations. Moreover, the grand design of these demons were exacerbated by cunning intrigues of post truth campaigns. Their sinful breaths whispered thousand of hoaxes that were spread intentionally. The fake news were crammed into their brains actually contradicted to their common sense, something that in the real world it never existed. Well, in fact the grassroots of two major conflicting groups were merely innocent people, who always lived peacefully and never had any significant conflicts before.
    "But, what can they do...?"
    When bullets from the assault rifles had exploded in the smoky air and whizzing everywhere, they seemed to be introduced to violence for the first time. Suddenly their world changed at a glance and they felt they had no other choice: to kill or be killed! And the hatred that were instilled over and over again in these crazy propaganda turned into fire and new energy for rage and killing. They had lost their true identity. They became the killing machines for their ambitious overlord politicians and selfish tyrant.

***

    I felt my shaky steps as I walked down on this blackened and dusty road, when I unexpectedly came to a junction... I saw the ruin of yellow country style house at the left side. It reminded me some memories. Gosh, I once lived with the old man as my kindhearted host there! A gray-haired quiet old man who always kept himself busy to work around the clock. That's the way to escape from his loneliness. It kept him sane and alive.
    As I continued down that road for about a quarter mile, I met the old lady who owned a small shop on the other side of the street, I asked her, "How's the old man? I saw that the old man's house was already in ruins, only half of it was left and the facade was badly damaged..."
    The old lady stared at my face seriously, as if trying to identify me, but she failed...she still thought of me as a stranger, "Are you part of those damned soldiers?"
    Of course, I'm not, Ma’am. I'm just a volunteer of humanitarian aid missions... I know this place so well, because I've ever lived for some time at the old man's house. I even frequently shopped at your store..."
    "Ah, a lot of things happened here, people come and go... I can't occasionally remember their faces... The old man you asked about had already left this village at the early war. One of his kindhearted granddaughter has taken him to the farthest part of the country where it is still safe.  I don't know how he is doing now. But, I'm sure he's better than us, we are the people who are still able to survive in this hell."
    "Oh, thank goodness..."

    She pointed to her small shop which was still intact, and said miserably, "I am so lucky because my little shop has survived the bombing, that's amazing! But unfortunately, when the 'Ape Troop' invaded this already crippled village, they ruthlessly and greedily robbed the entire stuff of the shop. Every single thing! They were like swarming locusts buzzing and swallowing everything around them.... It's like beast devoured the prey and then leaving nothing innocently. The last soldier's footsteps were a sign that there's no precious thing in my house anymore."
    I nodded and held her hand as a sign of deep empathy and concern. But my mind was immediately distracted by the phrase of 'Ape Troop' which was highlighted in a high note by her. I had heard it a lot recently. Even now it was quite popular that this brutal invasion was named as 'Ape War' or 'Ape Invasion'. People were shocked by the logic of this war. In fact, it was a completely unnecessary aggression and invasion, for lack of convincing reasons. Until finally this illogical war was called the war of the ape troop. Apes were associated as creatures on this planet who were careless without logic. They flocked to seize everything they found, then ran away leaving a ravaged zone in misery. "Attack first..., think later," that's about it.
    I carried a box of foodstuff in my hand, I handed it to the old lady. Her eyes seemed to sparkle with it. She thanked me and treated me like her very special hero, she patted my shoulder.
    But after a moment, suddenly her eyes were dim with tears. She said in a trembling voice, "Young man...you see this village have been destroyed by those criminal soldiers. But, it's nothing much.... Only few villagers lived here and most of us are old... We could bury the dead civilians quickly. You have witnessed this tragedy, it's the moments where the deadly storm has passed, I hope it's over now and this will be the start of a life.... I know it's so dreary...but, at least  we can still call it...a life!"

    I cut her off to show my consolation and said, "Of course..., this is the beginning...and hopefully there will be a peace soon..."
    However, she quickly interrupted miserably, "Young man...as I said before, all pain you've seen is only a drop in the bucket! You will soon understand the real suffering due to war... Just go to the next small town about 10 miles away... I've heard the news. It's really terrible news...! You'll find the true face of hell of this 'ape war'... Oh God, please forgive us...  I can say no more....."
    Afterwards, the old lady began to amble away and was soon passing out of sight....

***

    We started moving. Now, we felt our mission was very hard emotionally, both in a kind of anger and the feeling of deep sorrow. We had to be wise to manage it. All things that we were always dealing with as humanitarian volunteers who were leading to the battlefield where the cold blood aggressors had left their horrible hell because of ceasefire. We would only see ruins, all pains of war and human despair.
    Soon, my conversation about the small town with the old lady had been bothered me. Suddenly, my heart beat so fast. I was about to enter the small town with full of curiosity and horror as well. 'Curiosity' might be a word that currently felt so awkward and disrespectful, because it related to the human life existence. But, I couldn't deny my gut, honestly. And I immediately had to go to that small town anyway.
    Oh my God...! It seemed that all my fears came true. In a distance, I could already see the darkest horror. I saw the charred and blackened apartment buildings there!
    The mixture of smoke and dust reduced the visibility around me. And in that eerie gloom, I was already beginning to smell the unbearable stench. I began to realize a few people were welcoming us at the town's gate, and I was shocked to see a group of dazed people with the empty eyes. Deaths seemed rest in there, the cold bodies of life that started to weaken. They almost simultaneously pointed at something without any words were spoken, it made us quite wary.

    And it's true! My heart was pounding harder as if it was about to burst. I saw unspeakable horrors...stiff corpses were emitting the foul smell, scattered on the streets! It was really a complete madness. A massive massacre that appeared to be executed indiscriminately. They might had killed the crowd like cutting weeds no matter how old or young, women or children they were. It's all done senselessly, and it's obvious that only coldhearted people were possessed by the damned worst demons would be able to do that.
    As we entered deeper into the killing field area, I saw huge gaping holes everywhere. Some of them might have been from the explosions of big bombs, but others were shallow pit dug hastily for mass graves. A wasted effort that they might never be able to finish it properly. Cause I could testify with my own eyes that there were still many horribly dead bodies on the streets or in the ruins of the abandoned houses. I even saw fingers sticking out of the wet muddy ground because they dug the mass grave too shallow. Some part of it were made a mess by wild animals that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The vultures flew to and fro, never taking their eyes off them to join the feast in the midst of human misery at its lowest point.
    In a dark narrow corner of the stuffy alleyway, I heard a sob of a young girl whose clothes were dull and torn as she hugged her knees. Her slight moaning sound  sometimes got louder almost like a long heart-wrenching howl. Her neighbor, another old unfortunate woman who couldn't calm her down said to me, "Poor her.... All men in her house were killed. And the remaining women were raped, her mother died horribly and couldn't stand the suffering anymore. As you can see, she is the only teenage girl alive. It's a heartbreaking tragedy, I bet her soul is sorely shaken by now."

    A young fellow behind me who accidentally heard the old woman's words couldn't take it anymore and suddenly cursed in a low voice so as not to make a scene...,"The troop of savage apes...! Bastards!"
    I tried to calm him down. Though I felt the same anger deep in my soul honestly. But, I soon realized…that it was not our war. We were in a humanitarian mission to help civilians as the victims of war. We were forbidden involving ourselves in this damned war.....
    Suddenly, everything completely became silent. Once or twice I could hear the groans of wounded people. Some of them cried on their sadness. In those tense moments of the unbearable deep sorrow that had touched my very soul so profoundly, I was secretly disturbed by a cursing of the young fellow earlier. I thought about the words: The troop of savage apes...! I felt something odd and my heart sank. I thought, it's a strange analogy.... I might be able to understand when apes were associated as those who carelessly attack and never thought about the consequences. They would consider it later.
    But, when I saw all these war crimes and uncivilized massacres….I started to doubt it… There were no apes capable of doing it! Apes were more like silly clowns, and they were not fierce creatures who had the heart to do all these merciless executions. It would be inappropriate to blame apes for the humans behavior! Yes, right! Human was the only one unique species who had inhabited this earth for thousands years, which never felt tired of destroying everything.
    There were two faces of mankind. Sometimes they were perceived as the most noble creature in this world! But, on this hell I found out everything became faded and seemed to remain as a mere fiction.
    The other was a dark side of human being. It's a true face of evil that was even worse than the behavior of any demons! Humans were ruthless bloodthirsty creatures who tended to make destruction on earth. In fact, mankind history was full of repeated bloody episodes. They were also capable of committing mass suicide by devastating the earth where they lived by launching nuclear missiles over their heads. Compared to all the species on this earth..., then humans were the most destructive creatures that ever existed.....

Roel Reis for Peace

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