Faith for forgiveness

He'd named them each in his mind at some point in the past, each and every one of them. There had been no choice, because he'd never know their names otherwise. So each of them, after the shooting stopped, had been given a name. The others laughed, they told him that simply counting the kills was easier, or that he could just ask the young men they took whenever they found a village. Of course, he couldn't actually do that. The conscripts were usually warped on janja, and if they weren't? He couldn't bear the look in their eyes when they saw him, one of the men who'd destroyed their lives.

How long he'd been at this cycle, he couldn't say, but he never seemed to run out of names. There were friends from his childhood he'd never see again, his mother and sisters, the missionaries, so many more. And if he was honest, the naming process eased his mind. Time made the actual killing so much easier, and in the absence of the act, when he was dragging bodies or claiming hands, dubbing the lifeless bodies soothed him.

Somehow it hadn't worked any more, he'd been crying all day long in grief for the things he'd done and begging the strange guardians of the missionaries' faith for forgiveness. He wasn't alone, either; the whole camp had been filled with repentance that morning, it seemed. And whether it emanated from them or elsewhere, it spread like wildfire. The calls came and echoed, bringing joyous news. The war was over, the fighting was to stop, and every one of them was to carry word to their brothers. It was a day to celebrate.

In the end, the new life started where the old one had left off; a village five miles back. They'd taken the young men, killed the old ones, and left. The children had been at school, but with the spreading news? He hoped they would be there. Steering the truck around a bend, his heart swelled as he saw a girl running towards him with fervent hope in her eyes. He hoped too; that whoever she sought was in the truck, that she would listen to the names he'd given the dead, and that he would never need to do so again.