I often wondered how I would die. The thoughts never came to me because I wanted to die per-say but because having lived the life I lived, taken as many lives as I have taken both by choice and in service I never thought I would have a peaceful death. However, lying here in my son's arms slowly bleeding out, thinking upon my choices that led me here, I couldn’t help but be at peace.

  ***

  My “career” started in a poor African nation on the west coast of the continent with me as a child soldier under the banner of “The Populist Liberation Army” in my early teenage years. Fortunately or unfortunately some might say, I joined what was essentially a terrorist because I wanted revenge against the standing government for the role they played in my family's death and the subsequent cover up.

  In my attempt to mete out justice for the sake of my family, I ended up committing even worse atrocities in the name of “Liberation”. It was only after we won that I realized the monster that I followed, and the monster I had become so I left to try and become a better person. It also helped that not long after I left the country began to fall apart under the new leadership leading to another war of what little resources remained before the country eventually dissolved.

  However even with my newfound desire to be a better man, I had been a dog for too long, killing had already become too ingrained within me to give it up so I joined the army again. This time serving a whole new breed of monster. Ones who would send their men to death while sipping on 5000$ wine and smoking a 2500$ cigar. Scum through and through.

  For another 20 years I served as a weapon for these people, a hound of war because I knew there was nothing else for me. Through the broken bones, the torn muscles I fought tooth and nail, not because I wanted to please my superiors or that I cared about my comrades.

  No. It was because if I didn’t fight hard, if I didn’t lose myself in the dance of death that is war I would begin to remember things that were better left forgotten.

  Until one day I met him. He was a feral little thing, came at me with a knife aimed straight at my kidney one day when I was walking in one of the poorer areas of the city I was stationed in, but even with his ferociousness he couldn’t have been more than 12 years old at the time and with my training it was light work in disarming and disabling him.

  As I had him pinned to the ground with my boot I saw him, truly saw him. Instead of a head full of black curls, there were patches in his hair, no doubt caused by ringworms.

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  His face, apart from being covered in dirt and grime was gaunt, his eyes slightly sunken in with one of them having the signature ring of a black eye probably from another failed robbery attempt.

  His clothes, no more than rags, did little to hide more bruises on his black skin or the obvious signs of malnutrition. He looked like shit, plain and simple. Yet there was a look in his eyes that was all too familiar, as he struggled underneath me, punching my leg , biting, scratching, anything to get me off him.

  Hunger. Anger. But most of all an unwillingness to accept defeat, more than likely because if failed now he probably wouldn’t live to see tomorrow. Feelings that reminded me of the time before I joined the “Liberation” Army, surviving on my own for months after losing my family as I tried to make it the next closest city.

  It wasn’t long until he tired himself out, and when he finally stopped struggling, and when he did I couldn’t help but think how pitiful, and it was immediately followed by the feeling of shame, as the last thing I wanted from others was pity. No, the same reason I didn’t want their pity then is the reason why this boy wouldn’t want my pity now, because those that feel it never help in the way that matters.

  A coin here, some food there, little bits and pieces of what they had if they even gave me anything at all, saying things like “oh you poor thing” or “I’m sorry this happened to you, but I'm struggling too”.

  At the time there were dozens of other children just like me on the streets due to the ramping of skirmishes between the “Liberation” Army and the nation’s standing army, leading to the deaths of many families that got caught up in the crossfire.

  Between the loss of customers from all the deaths, and the lack of materials due to fights over trade routes there wasn’t much left for someone to feed themselves let alone an orphan. Leaving them only pity and scraps to survive.

  When I thought about my time as a street rat and the anger I felt at being looked at with pity I decided to do what no one else did for me.

  As I took my foot of his chest he still laid there, his breathing erratic and haggard I looked him in the eye and said to him

  “Hey kid, instead of flailing around like a headless chicken, how would you like to have a job instead?” My eyebrows raised, a slight smirk at my lips as he looked up at me, his thin eyebrows furrowing at the implication of the question before he then opened his mouth to say.

  “Why the fuck would you offer me a Job?” to which I responded.

  “Why the fuck not?”

  His face began to scrunch up in a way that only someone thinking ‘are you stupid?’ would make, and I couldn’t help but think,

  This ought to be interesting.