The Bones That Pave the Road

"Ten thousand years of life, for the Emperor!", the General said, to rapturous applause. For what could be more righteous than the imperial decree: “KILL ALL CAPTIVES”?

Loyalty weighs like a mountain. So easily, atrocities become banal and routine…

Loose the barbarian hordes, and desecrate the city. Men, like animals, slaughtered; and the women and girls, used as whores.

Master-race mentality, used to subjugate one's neighbours. This chapter is no exception: it is the rule.

The exertion of absolute power requires examples be made.

The sovereign’s policy turns men into beasts for the blackest crusades.

For is not violence and wanton destruction the purpose of war? How many cities will lay prostrate at the boot of this conquering force?

They’ll say: “Murderers!”

The veneer of civilization is paper-thin. Sons, brothers and fathers can be morphed into devils. Another chronicle of mankind’s cruelty to their fellow humans. What a disgusting stain!

Extinguishing life at the whim of a higher caste, only for those deaths to be meaningless the next day.

An ancient culture, crushed into a mire of gore. Reduced to ash in the impulsive swarm of violence. Such disrespect for life!

Don’t avert your eyes!

The militaristic war machine drives men to commit inconceivable acts of barbarity. It creates great potential for brutality among the gullible peasant class. It’s a power which all men aspire to, in their hidden hearts: the power to dole out life or death. It carries no more moral weight than slaughtering an animal, if you have been raised to believe: “They are less than you!”

A culture that prefers death to capture cannot comprehend: the men doomed to their ends, docile with no protest.

So, the orgy ensues: Murder! Fire! Rape!

The shame their kin would feel to know such tales of horror, committed by their fathers and sons.

Bodies pile up on the streets. The vile stench of rotting…

300,000 – or more – dead; and the brothels sordid beyond imagination. Families forced to participate in their own destruction.

The flag which bears long history, torn down and insulted daily, in this hell that leaves a vulgar legacy.

In merely six weeks: once a capital; now a grave, where ghosts linger, questioning: “Why did no-one help?”

A festering wound in the city’s soul. What criteria records events in history, but consigns the rest to oblivion?

When punishment comes due, what can the General say, from the docks, when confronted with the mass graves?

Would an act of public self-flagellation be sufficient? What about reparations for destroyed lives, or an apology?

Stripped of his stars and stripes, the General becomes just a man, facing the concentrated fury of an entire city.

Is death escape, or punishment? Or will his kin enshrine his memory in a cathedral of madness? A contentious monument? Like a hero?!

Revisionists downplay or outright deny these atrocities committed on an international stage, in sight of the embassies. Desperation to save face won’t allow for healing; such acts bury victims in more than just the earth.

Deluding themselves…

Humans are tribal at their core. It’s alarming how easily we commit genocide; or can accept such cruelty. We dismiss butchery with the wave of a hand: it poses no threat to “us”; or even “me”. We wring our hands of responsibility.

We all do it. We still do it.