(A/N: I feel that this story deserves some explaining. It’s a short story at the moment but I may change it around into a long one. The views in this story are strongly political, and a very different thing to write about for me, so please don’t criticize any of my ideas, they’re not necessarily my views on the war, they’re just my characters views on the war. I don’t live in the states and I’m not very interested in politics, so forgive me if anything I say is not true or unrealistic. I got the idea for this story from a song by Pinhead Gunpowder, that was also performed acoustically by Billie Joe Armstrong (called Life During Wartime). I strongly encourage reviews and critique!)

My Life during Wartime

By: Hayden B. Pearson

Block: C

English 12

This essay is supposed to be about what I can do to help our county during these tragic times of lies and war. I’m supposed to be making up some bull shit about how “one person can make a difference” how I can “help to unite our nation during it’s time of crisis.” Like I said before: bull shit. I laugh at the trouble I’ll get in for swearing in an English essay, I can already see the bright red “F” staining the paper on which I now write, but I’m going to write it anyways. I’m going to write it because I refuse to lie, I could quite easily get an “A” on this paper if I wrote something appropriate, something expected, but I won’t. Writing is about giving the unexpected, giving the reader something they’ve never seen before. So I shall swear as much as I fucking want. How’s that for unexpected?

Well now, I seem to be getting a little bit carried away. Good. It’s been too long building up inside of me for me to not let it all escape now, till there’s nothing left but the truth. Don’t get me wrong, I used to be like all of you little clones out there. Believing that, if I just gave it my all, tried my very darndest, I could make a difference. One person could make a difference. We could work together, combine our powers and join forces to defeat the evil menace the looms over our freedom, like a vulture over a dying animal, circling, taunting, and waiting for that perfect moment to strike. Now doesn’t that just sound silly? I would laugh, but it would only get me a stern look of disapproval or maybe even a little chat out in the hall.

I saw a protest on television the other day, that’s what brought this all on. Before I saw it was like all of you, I had hope, I had belief. That was all before realization struck me. All those people, marching in the streets, carrying signs that boasted “no war” and “make peace”; when I first saw them I admit that I was proud. I had some hope left in me that maybe now they would listen, maybe now enough people would come to get some real attention. I’m such a dumbass; I can just see myself, starring at the television with a slight, hidden smirk, cheering on those pathetic protesters in my mind, hoping the whole world would see. But then I saw him. I don’t know his name, I’ve never met him before in my life, but that one man would change my beliefs forever. It’s quite ironic that he was trying so hard to do the exact opposite. The first scene they showed of him, he was in the crowd waving a sign like all the other idiots and shouting something inaudible. He was dressed in the sorriest looking mess of clothes I have ever seen, honestly, there are bums on the street right now dressed like George W. Bush himself compared to this guy. But he didn’t care, no, he didn’t care at all. He chanted, he marched, and he encouraged like king of the damn hobos, all he needed was a soapbox and he’d be set. The next scene showed the hobo king talking to a reporter about the protest. “Best turnout yet” he did state with more than just a hint of pride at his subjects. “I think we’re really getting somewhere.” I have never seen a more persistent liar in my entire life. The man was lying through his teeth; and he knew it, the whole country knew it, I knew it. The next second he was gone. The newscaster moved on to something more interesting to keep up with the attention span of the audience, like a babysitter trying to keep a child occupied. I hardly paid attention to the next story, something about I product scare “don’t eat this, don’t buy that, eat this, buy that.” I was still thinking about the hobo even when the commercials came on. He was so damn pathetic. Did he even realize that his stupid protests we’re getting no where? I bet he did. I could just see him boasting to other better dressed hobos about all the riots he’d been to, all the rallies for some common good that could hardly be seen through all the signs and crowds; all reaching no avail. The war burned on like the fires caused by the riots, never stopping, but waiting for the riots to burn out, and the riots never stopping but waiting for the war to burn out. It was all a sad, depressing circle of no effect that I finally managed to wield myself out of.

“One person can make a difference” you say? You’re as bad a liar as the king himself. He couldn’t do anything, and I can’t do anything. I’m not giving up, I’m not quitting in abandoned hope to ride on with the wave of quiet Bush supporters. I’m just realizing the truth and coming to terms with my utterly useless person. You may say I’m unimaginative, or give me some cliché motivational quote like “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” but it’s not use. I’ve made up my mind at last, I’ve found myself. So fuck you and your ideas about the future, I have seen the future and it lied. That’s just my opinion, so don’t disarm it, let me live my life of little effect. That’s just my life...my life during war time.