the The Knight shivered in the cold winter air, finally letting the tension which had been clenching his shoulders fade into a quiet grip. His mind was racing like a muscular horse, his heart was pounding as he was trying to justify what he had just done. He sat down on a flat tree stump, so perfectly smooth it was as though nature was begging him to take this time and reflect. He gazed out into the forest, the shouting and clanging of the battle still echoing in his ears. The King said it was the only way, The Knight thought. The King is right and the Barbarians are wrong and I am loyal, he told himself. He thought back on his life and wondered how he had gotten himself into this position. He was a smart, kind child who grew into the man he was today. He considered how little he had been able to focus on his personal life since the war began, how he had found himself sending young boys away to fight, tearing them from their families. The Knight remembered spending hours smiling and laughing and climbing trees with his childhood friends. He thought about the shame he received for refusing to go to war, how he begged his mother to let him go fight and how she didn’t want him to, but since he was now a grown man, he could make his own decisions. She had to let him go, and so he went. He thought about his first battle, about his fellow knights, no more deserving than he, dying right before his eyes. He thought about the orders the knights received after the battle, orders that straddled the line between good and evil, yet nevertheless they were orders that needed to be followed because The King is right and The Barbarians are wrong and knights are loyal, so, as a knight, he had to be loyal. He did as he was asked. When The Barbarians attacked, he did as he was asked and stood his ground. When the time came to push back, he did as he was asked and held his head high, fighting bravely alongside his comrades. And when the dust had finally cleared, the dead buried, and the enemy surrendered, he did as he was asked and killed who was left of The Barbarians. I have nothing to be ashamed of, he thought. The King is right and The Barbarians are wrong and I am loyal,
Jackson DiRoma
he assured himself again. The Barbarians are wrong, he repeated. The Barbarians ae wrong. But yet here he sat, only minutes after the fighting had ended, gazing into this beautiful forest. He thought about The Barbarians who had died, The Barbarians he had killed. They could have played in trees as children, just like he did. They had worried about the families they left behind, the mothers who did not want them to fight. His mother. What would she have thought if she knew of the heartless, merciless actions in which her son had taken part? She would be shocked, The Knight thought. She would be appalled. She wouldn’t even recognize the boy she had raised. She would have never understand how I could have made such a choice, and I would try to explain it to her, but none of that would matter because right is right and wrong is wrong and I—well—who am I? Is he the brave, fierce, and devoted knight he thinks he is, dedicated to his King, or is he just one of thousands, of millions? Is he one of millions of people fighting for something they don’t understand, is he one of millions of people taught to understand only that there is one problem and it is a group of people who are savage and evil? Is he one of millions of people simply wrapped up in a cycle of good versus evil and right versus wrong, a cycle created out of illusion and hatred, and is he one of millions of people sitting in a beautiful forest with trees towering over him and grass and leaves weaving in and out of focus and birds singing beautiful symphonies while his previous notions of good and bad people are being brought to question? What if there are no good people? What if there are no bad people? What if there are just people? What if there aren’t any problem starters, just problems? What if this forest that surrounds him is just part of a world so beautiful and underserved by men, a world in which they are so fortunate to be living, a world which everyone should be able to enjoy together? This is blasphemous, The Knight thought. The King is right and The Barbarians are wrong and I am loyal. He stood up and started the long trek back to camp. Blue Review Vol. XXVIII
47
