King's Right Hand - May 25, 2011

   We’re standing at the very top of the valley. Down below is where the fire is raging. It’s not just the buildings all lit up with licking flames, it’s the people as well. I can see one or two out there, probably screaming from the hot chaos. Fire…it started so easy, with a click of a button.
    Everything is burning.
    Everything but the top of this valley.

    “This….this is judgement day, my friend.” says the man. The man holding the button. The man holding the fire. He’s grinning and I know why. “Beautiful.” he says.

    I think about the battles so far. Every one where I wielded the pistol on my hip. Where I aimed, fired, didn’t aim, fired anyway.
    Killed. I’ve killed. Won this war fair and square, as it may be.
    We’re looking down on the victory.
   
    The man wants to laugh, I can tell. He is struggling to hold down the corners of his mouth. Mad, mad, crazy, mad, man.
    Though, I suppose he’s more of a God now. He has been for a while, I think. We marched behind him. Loaded the guns methodically like a prayer in our trenches and warehouses, which had become temples.
    Worshiping him.
    A holy war.
   
    The very last of the tall city buildings falls and with it, a silence spreads. It’s quite at the top of this valley. I move in the quiet, finally. First flexing my hand. Then I turn my head to look at him fully.
    He is eager for the soldiers to return form the city. Or see who won’t, and he’ll call them expendable because he’s won.
    “There’s more work to be done, of course.” he says. “And you have done spectacularly.”

    I am his right hand. Loyal servant. His.
   
    And so I take my right and swiftly pull the pistol from my holster. The weight is a familiar one, the weight of it in my hand; I hate it.
    He looks confused for the split second that I hold the pistol out.
    Then I put it in my mouth.
    And I pull the trigger.

    End

-Kortnee Tilson