The Perfect Weapon

It’s all a lie, ya know.

All those pretty words, like “you can always go home again” and “all you need in life is love”. They’re nothing more than someone’s vain attempt to make themselves feel better amongst the endless rolling hills that are life’s betrayals. They are meant to give courage in the face of never ending adversity; one last rally call along the front lines as you rush into a battle that there was never any hope of winning. The battle isn’t the hard part though, not really; the hard part comes after, if you are one of the soldiers left alive. The hard part is when you realize that they were nothing more than hollow words; it’s when you’ve been around long enough to see through their particular brand of lies. That is the true horror of life: waking up one day, after the heat and adrenaline and purpose of the battle have left you, to find that all your ideals have been torn away like a sail in the wind.

Don’t believe me?

Of course you don’t.

And why should you?

It is the folly of the young, the blissfully naïve, to dismiss the bitter words of the wizened, grizzled old warriors that have gone before you. In a way, I feel that it is absolutely imperative for you to do exactly that. After all, how would you ever make it to an age such as mine, without the silly comfort of your undamaged ideals to guard you against despair? What strength would you have to draw upon if you knew the truth of my words? Oh no, it is much better if you cling to those silly turns-of-phrase as if they were a gospel, grasp them desperately and fling them in the face of your adversaries as if they were all the protection you needed. Time is a relentless demon, and time it is that will see the shroud of your innocence ripped away from you; experience -unbending and unyielding loss will be the perpetrator of your descent into biting despair.

And I will be watching.

I alone will be there when the terror and agony have forced you to your knees, sobbing and pleading for an end to it all. You will come to know me as you know no other, and for awhile I will give you the peace and rest that your aching heart so desires. I will be your respite from the boundless cruelties of the world; I will bind you to me irrevocably, as only patient kindness after an onslaught of cataclysmic abuse can do. I will give you a new belief system, a new arsenal of ideals with which to arm yourself.

I will be your most thorough defeat – and you will thank me for it.

I will be the death of your most beloved dreams – and you will praise my name.

I will be the conqueror of anything and everything you ever thought to be.

And you will be my perfect weapon.