WINDOW VIEWS - The Fourth Apartment

This was not his first, second nor third apartment, it was the fourth he'd inhabited in the last two years. Each time the windows had been shattered by explosions in the street, or had their entire frames blown out by 'rogue' drone activity. And once the window glass was broken to just a edging of shards, then snipers could then pick off with greater ease the merest shadow of the figures within. These were the type of ruins within which he'd incrementally lost all his close family. One by one, as the interior walls were strafed, the pain of it became carved into every pock marked wall and floor etched with blood. Staining the memory of his life in this sparsely furnished property, he'd barely had the time to consider home. Once the windows had their eyes blackened and the innards were opened up like a carcass, then the swirls of dust blew in and filled the space. What was there left of family, or for himself, to keep him here?

He thought he was battle hardened, but in reality coldly inert emotions had taken him over. Surviving by closing down more and more of his basic humanity. Would this be the last place he would ever say was his? He told himself he was fighting for territory, for the freedom to live how how he wished and where he wished. Once he had fought for his wife, his son and daughters, his parents, and his own future. But each time another one of them fell to the hail of a machine gun, or the pin point accuracy of a snipers shot, he became a further step removed from any honourable volition he'd had in continuing to fight. He picked off soldiers because he could, not because they endangered him, purely as an act of revenge. Rage fed him, blindly and implacably. He no longer liked who he was becoming.

The military incursions into rebel held areas around this apartment, were increasing in frequency and effectiveness. Very soon the rebel resistance could break completely and there'd be another mad messy scurrying to relocate and regroup in another misbegotten area of the city. Setting up camp there, until once again tanks and missiles would locate them. Inevitably this territory too would be fought tooth and nail over, and the self same sorry tale of resistance going unrewarded would proceed. How long would it be before there was nowhere else left to run to? He was exhausted by it, he dreamed of just walking away. But he didn't. Though he thought about leaving a lot. Making a new life, anywhere but here. Some country that didn't require constantly to be fought for. So stable that civil war was a history way beyond living memory. A place with a reputation for tolerance, kindness and peacefulness. A country willing to open its arms and welcome him in. Whilst peering through a bullet pitted window frame, engaging in a tit for tat gun battle, all of that dreaming felt improbable.