Microwars

Lying in the grass, eyes closed, thinking of the perfect string of words to put onto these next few blank pages. Wondering about my fear of pronouns. Fear of pen ink that doesn't want to be read. Fear of passages that will remain daft and vague, unreadable.
So many trivial fears when what should be crossing my mind are wars, death, sacrifice, and the ultimate human truths that everyone strives to conquer.

I used to write in beautiful, brilliant eloquence, embellishing clarity with ribbons of adjectives, nouns, verbs with color. Now I can only say things straight-forwardly, logically, plainly -- what I wanted, wasn't it? Logic? Well, now I've got neither. How's that for being careful?

I wake up from failed writer revelation and talk back to the blades of grass, mediocre sayings. A wasp, comparable in size and in intimidation, stares back.
"Come closer; I dare you." Its eyes, outmassing its body, tell me. I open my own lazily and watch the creature (though I can't stand wasps and am deathly afraid of them) move from blade to blade relentlessly; its terrifying body seemed no bigger than mine all of a sudden, and when emerging from the field of greens and of sun and lonely summer evenings...

It moved painstakingly and with great caution; its valiant efforts seemed so futile, so hopelessly in vain, so sadly pathetic and brutally lost. And it wasn't a matter of intimidation anymore, and certainly not fear, when the yellow-specked legs fought for standing on the lowest blade of grass.
It had no direction. It turned from me and wandered painfully away, turned around and looked me deeply in the eye again -- a warning?

But what use, and of what merit, is the warning (and perhaps all of communication) when we're outnumbered by so many obstacles bigger than ourselves? Why fight, why crawl, why move from blade to blade, grassy field to grassy field, in search of the smallest, faintest, wasp-yellow speck of direction?
Maybe it knew when it got there.
Maybe I'll know when I get there.

We kept looking at each other, kept our speechless and actionless fight, until it decided enough was enough and aimed its course directly at me. Still terrified of wasps, I knew I could crush it and pilfer its life quicker than the green sea would, but I didn't. I was comfortable in my grassy spot, with just the right amount of sunshine, that I could easily silence its aggressive eyes with a swipe of a hand, of a foot, of a book. It would be gone, and I would be left alone again, enjoying the solitary tranquility of the summer evening. Alone, again. Fears, again. Waiting on words, again.

That's the goal, isn't it? I'll watch people come and go, but I'll have more interaction with a struggling insect than any human being.

I move. Of all the self-imposing, powerful, and establishing actions I could have taken, I move to a different location.

And that's the truth of it, isn't it? Of peace, of wars, of violence, of love, of civility? All there is left to do is move.

I don't want your wars and your primitive, mediocre, bloody settlements -- save your screaming children and your dying women in favor of something you are just as capable of doing -- not with your pride, but with your mind.

Save your wars for an era devoid of logic, of reasoning, of compassion; save your brutal might for protecting those who call for it; save your destruction for diseases that evade it.

Just breathe fresh-cut sun-soaked grass and think about what it means to move.

Civilization's here. We're waiting for your progress.