The Mercenary

For a few pieces of the shiny metal, he sold few people’s right to live.He was a merchant of death.A mercenary.

It began to haunt him tonight. Years of fighting for money had not scarred him as past 2 days had. Earlier, it had been wars against other mercenaries, other merchants of death. Here, he was up against lovers of peace. Teachers, students, parents, bakers, poets, intellectuals who were ready to die for their beliefs but seldom rose up to kill. He had started to remember what a soldier was made of. It was not the ability to give pain but the ability to bear it. Willingness to smile into death for what one lived for.

Tibet. That holy land forever torn between peace of thought and violence of action.He saw lunatic passion in the eyes of the first man who bit his bullet. He heard reckless belief in the voice of the woman who followed. He saw unshaking unity in the joined hands of the 3 students he had gunned down that afternoon outside Lhasa palace. He heard unrelenting faith in liberty in the choruses of the masses that marched on and past him.

He started out a soldier. A patriot who fought for his country, killed for his country. He moved on the fast track in the army, picking up honor after honor to become the most decorated soldier of his batch and the 5 batches preceding him to be the poster boy of the armed forces and face of its recruitment programs.

The threat of foreign invasion loomed larger everyday. One fine morning, the radio cackled that the bully neighbor had annexed the country. The government, courts and armed forces were declared invalid and were to be disbanded immediately. The sleepy populace suddenly woke up and wrecked havoc on the street. Unarmed peasants, teachers, bakers poets, intellectuals .. everyone revolted against the arbitrary rule.He took on the cudgels to organize the former army into a guirilla militia and commanded it to victory after victory on the enemy forces, forcing them to withdraw. The slogan of FREE KUWAIT rang loud in the streets.

The shit hit the fan. Some politicians of his own country conspired with the enemy to sell off their nation for a handsome personal profit. Of course, the rogue commander of the rogue army would be taken care of too, as part of the deal. He was arrested and made to appear in a fake court martial on charges of fanning separatist violence ; Impeached and awarded death. A public hero had become the national shame. He had resigned to his destiny till he was being shifted from ordinary prison to high security prison. The guards were sympathetic to him and let him loose near the border.

He crossed over into another country, into another life. His spirit was broken but his bones were intact. He was a trained crack commando and knew his job well. To keep alive and away, he became a mercenary. He moved from war zone to war zone , fighting for his paymasters of the moment. There were dozens of land disputes across the world being solved by the bullet, and he would be the shoulder that carried the gun, along with others like him

A soldier died.A mercenary was born.

He was emotionally dead and never thought of who had been on the other side of the gun once he was done with the job. But today was different. He drank 5 stiff ones but couldn’t get the innocence, the determination of those faces off his mind. Most of all, it was their correctness that haunted him. He fought for money. They fought for justice. Half an hour of tossing and turning later, it was clear that sleep would be elusive tonight.

He went to the bonfire of the camps he was living in and requested the clerk to get him a fix. The clerk was a deputee of the paymaster and he was happy to oblige the mercenaries with alcohol, cigarettes or a fix, free of cost. Almost as soon he reached his tent, his fix followed him in. He had noticed the natural beauty of Tibetian women, but this one was a piece of art. Almond brown eyes, smooth skin, long brunette hair and a delicate citrus perfume. But still the whole of her was more than the sum of its parts. He was rough and reckless with her, but she was understanding, even encouraging. Half an hour later, he fell on his side, slumbering in his sex and booze haze.

She turned him slowly onto his back, gently sliced his throat with her knife, and patiently engraved FREE TIBET on his bare chest for the world to see and melted into the moonless night.

A mercenary died, a soldier was born.