War

War, war never changes.

Even after years of night battles across Grade 4, sector F, table 3, I still get the same feeling of dread before every incursion. The Drill Sergeants move through the assembled troops, whipping us into a frenzy.

It is hard to get a fresh pen into the appropriate scissor killing mood, but the drill sergeants are old hands, and allusions and references to spilled ink, burst cartridges and shorn caps soon convince even the most hesitant recruit into a murderous rage.

The old guard, few of us that remain, Fountain Joe, Balls Point and I, remain skeptical, our faces unreadable in the encroaching murk. We have seen too much to readily believe our own line, paper scissors cracked open, their screws undone, threads poking out of holes.

We knew that the enemy used the same tactics, the same persuasive words and the same desire to rule the sector. However there was no way out, there was no peaceful coexistence, the natural tendency of the pens to create and the tendency of the scissors to destroy could not cohabit, war was the only solution.

Monstrosities have been committed to us and by us and there seems to be no end to this war. The scissors give no quarter, and none is given.

But tonight, tonight war would change; the three of us were given a special assignment. We were to meet an informer and prepare a special missive to the pupils, the daytime rulers of the quadrant.

Other troops were simply there to provide a diversion. Simple cannon fodder, there to be used and replaced daily by the mysterious supply teachers, we suspected the same was done to the scissors, and we could only guess why they would support both sides.

We met the piece of paper in the shadow behind a neutral paint pot, who was bribed to look the other way. We quickly agreed on the course of action, and Joe started scribbling on the leaf.



We stood back, looking at it, with hope in our eyes. Finally, the war would change, the pupils would turn their wrathful eyes upon the scissors.

Suddenly I heard the sound of the scissors closing, and felt terrible pain. I blacked out, and when I came too, I discovered that my lower half was missing, the spring, the cap, gone; I was slowly leaking ink, smearing the table with it.

Joe was gone, sheared in half his innards spread across the grainy desk. Balls point was nowhere to be seen, only his trace drawn towards the edge of the table, showing how he struggled before being thrown off.

Even worse, when I looked up, I saw that our plans were for naught. The scissors have won, and we were doomed. Stretched ahead of me, taped to the punctured paint pot, was the missive.



They have subverted our message of peace to their own ends, and now the wrath of the pupils will turn against us. My thoughts grew blurry, the loss of ink taking its toll, and I blacked out for one last time.

In the morning, the supply teacher entered the room carrying the box, replacing the tools pupils damaged the day before. He stopped at table three and read the mutilated note. “I will have to talk to the teacher,” he thought, “a kid with such imagination would do well not to let it go to waste.”