A Field of Weeds

A Field of Weeds1


A large, calloused hand reached thoughtfully downward and plucked three small blades of grass from the ground, twisting quickly and breaking them in half with broken, mud-stained fingernails. The blades fluttered in the breeze, clamped tightly between a thumb and forefinger for just a moment and then, with a swift flick, were set free. They flew lightly from the hand, twirling across the surface of the plain, soaring in the wind and looking down at their brothers still rooted and alive in the soil.2

“Isn’t it interesting,” remarked the soldier, squatting in his rank and rolling the remnants of three severed leaves in his sodden fingers, “Isn’t it strange how the weeds in this field grow so green and alive and carefree while we stand ready to paint them red with our troubles? It’s humbling almost, to see them grow and spread their seeds without caring what happens on this battleground today.”3

The question rolled from his mouth and lay stagnant among his comrades for minutes, until, after a long, sober pause, one answered. 4

“I’ve never really thought about what’s going through the minds of plants, myself,” said the man standing next in line. He shifted his rusty helmet and glanced down at the kneeling man. “All I know is it won’t be my blood weighing them down. No sir, not my blood” 5

The soldier stood up. “Maybe not,” he said, “but either way, your blood doesn’t weigh too much.” He squinted calmly in the noonday sun and looked up and down the front ranks of the formation. There men stood, men clad in iron, miles of them, it seemed. Man after man wearing shiny armor and sparkling, with the sun glinting off their sword hilts and metal shields. They stood unnaturally still, like a living, lethal fence, standing ready for the orders that would send them to another’s death or to their own.6

“And how many of us will be left at the end of the day?”7

“What’s this?” asked his companion, smirking in amusement, with his chipped teeth and dirty lips, “Gettin’ yellow before battle, eh? Losing some of that courage with your age?”8

The soldier stroked his graying beard and glanced down at his sword, a strong sword that had many times over earned its keep in conflict. “No, not losing courage, not yet. War just leaves me wondering whether courage is wasted on certain things. We could win this battle, or we could lose it. I could live or I could die. But either way, life goes on.”9

“Not for you, if we lose.”10

“Maybe not, but elsewhere…”11

“You know,” the companion sneered, “you keep thinkin’ too much, you might as well be dead already. Who cares if the grass lives or dies? I don’t. But I know what does matter, and that’s my own head. So I’m gonna march forward like every other time, and God help the man who gets in my way. To hell with the grass, this soldier is gonna live.” 12

His bold assertion hung in the air before them and then was shattered as a trumpet sounded over the silence of doomed men. As one body, the front line moved forward to meet its fate. Left foot, right foot, marching across alternating squares of grass and dirt towards the advancing enemy.13

Move, countermove, infantry and cavalry strategically placed themselves across the field full of weeds.14

It’s not so hard to kill a man, the soldier thought. A simple, sharp object in the gut will do, or a hard blow to the head in the right place. Anyone can do it with just a little training, and can achieve the art even more exceptionally with a few years practice. And he definitely had practice. Everyone did. Ever since the first two people born of a womb walked this planet, murder has been on the mind and in the hands of men, and since that day, it has been the standard of mankind’s bizarre relationship with itself. With every great achievement man has made, great men have been killed, and great men have killed them. Killing ends conflicts; it silences critics; it builds empires. War and murder are no strange things to humanity, and after seeing a man’s soul leave him with a single crunch of your own metal fist for the first time, after the shock of seeing him crumple to the ground or cease his agonizing screams, it no longer seems so unordinary. Today isn’t unordinary at all.15

The soldier and his companion stopped their march halfway across the battlefield, he on loose dirt and the companion standing to his right, almost casually, on a patch of tall grass.16

“So here we go, old timer,” the companion said. “No time now for shakin’ legs or philosophical brainjobs. Adrenaline’s beginnin’ to flow. It’s either fear or determination. Are you still wasting your energy thinkin’, or are you gonna fight?”17

“I’ll fight; I’ve always fought.” The soldier spoke while looking straight ahead at the advancing enemy, picking out a single man in that line. A man wearing dark black armor decorated with a coat of arms over his chest, who would soon stain his family’s symbols with his blood. “I’ve fought battle after battle against men I didn’t know, for a king I’d never met. I’ve slaughtered fathers and sons for land or liberty or noblemen’s pride. I’ve burned homes and sieged castles, and now, as I march out to do it again, I realize one thing: I’m still fighting. I’m fighting now and I’ll probably fight again. The only question is, for what ends?” 18

They were close enough to smell the sweat of their enemy, near enough to feel their foul breath bearing down like a putrid storm of stink and flesh and endless, unnatural metal. Eyes flared and mouths firmed as the scent of death rose over the mass of life, preparing to roll back down from above and take the living along with it.19

And stalk after stalk of tall green grass was trampled underfoot by the stampede, broken in half and scattered among the dirt. Stamping feet ground the weeds into strips of nothing and spread them far from where their roots sunk deep into the soil. But the roots kept firm, sure that the weeds would grow again, ready to play this dramatic scene over and over, battered to shreds and budding back to life again.20

“I don’t need any ends to slice an enemy in two,” growled the companion through gritted teeth. He raised his weapon as the stampeding army barreled nearer and nearer. “I only need…” 21

Steel hit steel, and the first man fell under a more experienced sword.22

“…an enemy!” He took a great leap forward off his grassy square and met an opponent face to face, with tightened muscles full of fury and great slashes that cut the unlucky warrior to bits of tissue and bone.23

Then, in his moment of triumph, a heavy axe sliced through the companion’s side and struck him to the ground. The axe lifted, cracking through ribs, and fell down again, like a guillotine, over his neck. He twisted in a simple response of severed nerves, and lay separated and bloodied over smashed plants and dirt.24

The battle blurred around them; there was death and there was pain, unbelievable, tearing pain that took living minds and strangled them out of existence. 25

It didn’t take an ounce of thought, simply reaction. The soldier looked at the axeman, the enemy in his ebony armor and decorated breastplate, without emotion or hate or disgust, and thrust his sword upward through his adversary’s throat, bursting it out through the top of his scalp. Blood squirted from the edges of the blade, and the crunch of bone was sickening, like a dry stick snapped roughly in two. But it was only one sound in the millions of crashes, thuds and stomach-wrenching screams in the arena, drowning out the cheers of the birds and murmurs of the wind, and the splatter of fluid spurting from the man’s head quickly joined rivers already flowing by.26

There is a moment when the soul leaves the body, an exact second when death comes to claim what it has been waiting for since a life began. It is that awful instance when the brain loses its final thought and the heart fails horribly in its last attempt to pump living blood through the veins. It is then that a man is dead. You can see it in his eyes. The windows to the soul close, shutting it off to the world it has experienced for so long, and there is nothing left but a corpse, a body which was born, which grew, which learned and lived and loved, but has forgotten everything it had ever known. 27

So, with a metal spike stuck through his skull, the enemy’s eyes shut, while staying wide open. His violent action faded away to peace; but it was the peace of emptiness, of nothing, and he slumped to the ground, defeated and free. 28

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“Quite the surprising move,” said the young man, sitting leisurely on a bench beside one of the many stone tables in the park. He moved his white pawn diagonally and pushed aside a bishop in black, examining it as he picked it up off the square. The piece wore dark, intricately decorated armor and held a large axe in its tiny hand. “I’m not exactly sure what you meant by it.”30

The other man glanced up quickly without a word and went back to examining the board in front of him.31

The morning sun shone warmly over the alternating black and white squares lying on the table, representing a field of war over which marble warriors fought. Thirty-two figures, standing tall, glared at one another from inches away and waited for their turn to move, as a gentle breeze ruffled the summer leaves of the trees overhead and swirled around the two men sitting beyond the battlefield. The one wore a jacket, despite the warm air, and a wool golf cap which covered most of his white hair. The other, a simple shirt and slacks, along with a grin on his trim face as he watched the deep blue eyes of his opponent.32

“I don’t know, Dad,” the younger one smiled as he placed the taken bishop off to the side of the board, “Maybe this is the time I finally beat you.” He laughed. “Or maybe you’re letting me win. It’s not often I get to take one of your bishops when all you took was a little pawn!”33

His father didn’t glance up, but simply reached out towards the center of the table.34

“Yes,” the father said, pushing a knight across the board into his son’s victorious, white pawn. “But sometimes we need to look beyond the simple moves in the game and see what’s really at stake. I look at this board and I don’t just see a game; I see a battle. I see a real battle with real people, fighting and bleeding and dying in a field of weeds. And, just as in battle, there are times when we need to make sacrifices in order to achieve what we need.” He lifted his hand from the table and crossed his arms over his chest as his son’s brow furrowed in disbelief.35

“Checkmate.”36

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The soldier gaped at the spear protruding from his chest with an open mouth full of surprise and looked agonizingly up into the fiery eyes of a horseman. He was given one look of disgust, and the spear was wrenched back out, flinging him onto his stomach as the horse and rider vaulted over him. Onto another prey.
Then, the battle ended, leaving the soldier lying in the dust with the dead. 38

His body, flat on the ground, began to submit, becoming an object rather than a man. The mouth closed and the strong hands fell limp, letting the sword free from their grasp. And, as the soldier’s eyes faded out of focus, he clasped blades of green grass between his dying fingers and pulled.39

But he was not strong enough. The weeds stayed firm in the ground, rooted deep.