The Other Voice

The heavy-eyed sunlight made its way through, albeit grandly, through the broken window pane of her small cottage. It scattered itself, like a dead man bathed in its own blood rivuletss along the floor. As the unseen crow crowed in the barnyard, it was another sleepy day, inattentive to the farming. The rains had been beating, untiring of its own sound and wreckage that it brought with it. The heavy eyed sunlight playing its own hide and seek games with the clouds, the rainbows getting its beauty from the game. And for Sarah, the realization dawned almost as sudden-

For today was the day., The day when her life – her life as she knew it – was over.

The others had been taken away, killed but their dead bodies never found. It was rumored to be an Army of Beasts, nicknamed as Spartans, ironically so. There were left no more, just Sarah and her family. The Spartans were taking everyone, all shapes and sizes as long as it moved with life. Spartans killed them all, sooner or later. Indiscriminately, Horribly… She knew they were dead, because she could see their corpses, lying abused in the dusty street, their bloods mixing in the rains- the gravels marooned and grey. She thought of all the poor wives, taken away by the Spartans who would never get to see the faces of their husbands that they had loved so dearly. It was said that the wives were never killed, they lived on as Spartans’ mistresses, missing their husbands for years to come. Death was a reward to them, ungiven and much sought.

Nobody knew where the Spartans had come from. Nobody had the chance to find out, their existence never gave them much chance or the urge. And then they were headed to Sarah- Killing everybody, taking away the wives. The raindrops were seemed smeared in the bloods of the husbands and the tears of the wives. And the clouds carried these drops farther, village to village.

You could see the Spartans coming by the huge cloud of dust that their running feet kicked up as they scuttled violently towards the village. Their horses carrying the weights of brutality forward. The first time they came was bizarre in a horribly violent surreal sort of way, like it was a little child’s nightmare out of his fairy tales book. The men were worn out into this world with bloodied limbs and looks of petrified terror. Spartans only killed those who attempted a resist to fight for their lives, and it was almost everybody.

These thoughts rushed through her head, and she leaned over to check if Robert was still in bed. He was gone, last night his heroism projected in the room, with his plans to fight the Spartans. His eyes shone with the bravery, unseen and unheard so in the tending farmers. Sarah was lost on what to do. The memory of last night’s bedroom revelation washed over her.

Robert had always been a peaceful farmer. That’s why she had loved him so much. He had been one of those kind souls for whom any violence was a total waste. His only wish was to spend life tending his farmlands, his sheep and tending his barn. But the damages of the entire village being decimated had gotten him. It had managed to lodge the seed of violence deep within his once gentle heart. And he being a farmer tended that seed till he had harvested it in its full bloom. He had planned revenge, and had a revelation on how to fight the Spartans. Sarah cried and so did the clouds outside in her village.

Oh Robert, what have you come to? Who have you become? Where have you gone? She will never see the face of the man who had loved her for so long. He will forever be but an apparition of her memory.

Sarah had come close to killing him last night. Killing out of love, or maybe mercy.

Too much love can kill you if you are not careful.

She knew that the Spartan would get him. And torture him, till he begged for his Death. The Spartans left nobody unscathed. They would bruise him, kick him, let him loose for him to gather his last shards of courage and then devastate him after he had given his last shot at life. They would have broken each of his limbs, each of his ribs, severed his eyes, ears, mouth. With only his heart not too faint to give up on his body, he would have suffered each blow, feeling his own limbs falling out of his torso.

She did not recall the last night, just that there was too much crying, there were too many words, screamed, begged and wasted. She saw his face, sweet as a child, talking of war, he against the whole army. He did not want to run away, he spoke too much. And she did not remember how she grabbed the knife by the bed, which she always kept under since she had known about the Spartans, the invisible enemies. And the knife was in his body, his blood in her hands. She could not have seen him dying in hands of Spartans.

A quick death would have done him good, would have done good to his soul. Atleast he deserved that much.

And the sunlight scattered itself, on the dead man bathed in his own blood rivulets along the floor, it scattered along Robert’s. Oh dear Robert, he still had that sweet smile, Sarah cried and screamed in her cottage. Her tears were carried forward in the rains outside, her scream in the thunder of the clouds.

The overcast clouds overhead fly by, and she knew that the Spartans were coming. They won’t kill her, she knew it.

Only If Robert were so lucky….