Plague of Peace

The news hit her eyes like an IED mine. Each word a war zone, each sentence incendiary. I stood in range of collateral damage. If defeat hadn't hurt us, it would be a relief. Our old way of life exploded on impact, familiarity fragged, assurances shattered, life would never again be on our side. I reassured her that life would one day return to the way it was. I told her to hold onto the hope that all would again be cast in despair, the world would return to the horrors we loved. Desolate and depressed, miserable and melancholy, we couldn't possibly live without these staples of existence. I promised her that our planet would grow horrible again.

"Life will return to chaos, things will get worse," I vowed, "one day, hopefully, we will again feel familiar pain. Don't worry," I said, soothing her, "the fires will rekindle, the terror will return. This sickening tranquility should soon pass, and everything will be in turmoil once more. Our dear destruction will come back to us, the atrocities will resume, I pray the annihilation will awaken."

Peace, disgusting peace, surrounds everything now, clouding people's judgment, distorting their sense of selfishness and greed. When will they wake up from their horrid dream and stop helping one another, they seem to have forgotten that kindness is criminal. We walked through the wreckage of our former lives and witnessed sadness wane. "Try to hold onto your grief, Sarah," I said, "clutch close the remnants of gloom."

This whole catastrophe began so long ago, it's shameful that we never crushed it when we had the chance. It began as merely a playful musing, a stray thought, an errant possibility, it grew until we began to more closely examine it, then we quickly cautioned it. We came to fear it, then to foretell of it. We came to expect it, almost to desire it, then in our foolishness to demand it, until finally we came to create it. How can we regret now our actions? We played along willfully. This sickening peace, this atrocity of kindness, ache of tranquility, this end of the world, our hour of judgment is upon us. People's faces are transformed, turned and distorted into a grotesque reversal of a common frown, their cheeks bulge with an effort that makes them cry out in tortured wails of "Haha! Ha! Hehe!" I can't stand to listen to it, and wisely so, as it appears to carry a contagion within it, infecting all who venture unwittingly near to those with this plague.

This peace will be our downfall, robbing us of our dread, crushing our beautifully vile malignity. What kind of world will it become when the rich cannot take greedily from the poor? What kind of world will it become when the putrid essence of charity seeps into every part of life? I cannot stand idly by as this disease of peace perverts mankind. All in power are now forced to stoop lower and lower to terrible levels of equality!

Freedom is the infant maggot of Peace, feeding on the rot of precious bigotry, consuming all the evil we worked so hard to perfect. One day Peace will spread its wings and hover ominously above us all, after it has consumed all of our sexy lust for suffering and desire to kill. I fear it won't be long until tolerance is all too common. Peace, putrid peace, soon this treacherously liberal agenda will rule our institutions and governing bodies, fighting for those for whom it's not worth fighting: invalids, minorities; standing up for those who, rightly, cannot stand up for themselves: the beasts and critters, the trees and the earth, the stupid starving children. How dare these monsters of benevolence and sympathy corrupt our imbalance of power! How dare these fiends pollute our glorious hatred with their appalling love!

We must purge Peace. Vanquish kindness. My cherished sinister cruelty must be allowed to flourish, my impressive vindictive addictions must be fed a fix. As I contemplated my revenge against the agendas of peace, we came upon a group of afflicted citizens. Their voices cracked with cackling, a demented, dissonant flood of fervor. I turned to Sarah, intending to pull her away, to flee with her before we too fell prey to this toxic contamination of compassion and cheerfulness, but to my dismay, it seemed it was too late. Sarah looked up at me and something in her had changed. I recoiled, never before had I seen such a nauseating look of mirth on her face. Her lips parted in a ghastly, snarling smile, her eyes seemed to glitter in a way that I found very worrying and threatening, something had taken over this person. Then suddenly something happened, she grabbed my hand, I could already feel the poison warmth of her bliss etching away at my cold character. She pulled me near to her, I tried to turn away, her glee was revolting yet somehow paralyzed me. I feared that my life would soon be over, I was about to be administered this viral contagion of affection. Sarah pressed her lips against mine, the venom of love filled my veins with immediate effect. I felt my heart change its rhythm, I felt my head spin with this newfound attack of amusement. I fell to my knees and began to cry. Even my tears were changed, charged not with the despair I was familiar with, but with some sort of joy. In this moment I knew I would never be the same, I knew the world would forever look different. I threw my head back and blasted the air with a vocalization of "hahaha!" that was not only strange to me, but also uncompromisingly perfect. As hilarity engulfed me, it was clear that Peace had won.