Aftermath
People like writing about war, but they rarely like writing
about the aftermath. And I think that’s a shame, because sometimes writing
about the aftermath can be at least as interesting. There’s a lot you can do
with what happens after the fighting is done, when people need to rebuild, when
they need to find who they are and where they fit in a world that is different
than it was when they began.Write about interpersonal
relationships, and how they changed.Write about how
people view themselves and the actions they needed to take.Write about rebuilding—physically,
socially, mentally, emotionally.Write about the choices
people made because they thought they were never going to need to face the
consequences.Write about the emotional
toll that war takes, that constant violence takes, that never being able to
relax takes.Write about the physical
toll that war takes, about the people who come back missing limbs or
neurons.Write about the people
who lost everyone they knew and still have to live with themselves.Write about the people
who lost everything, their homes, their land, the cities, about them
finding new places to call home, or not.Write about the people who are tasked with creating a new world, and the decisions
they have to make.Write about the people
who only knew war, who were born after the war started and grew up with
only that, who now need to figure out who they are in a world that has no place
for them anymore.Write about the people
who were heroes, who know how to be heroes but don’t know how to be people.Write about the people
who weren’t heroes, who were hated, who were disgraced.Write about the people
who didn’t fight in the war because they couldn’t, because they weren’t
physically capable or because society said they weren’t suitable.Write about the people
who fought on the losing side, who sacrificed everything and still lost and
now need to rebuild with nothing, who are painted as monsters when they need no
worse than the side that won.Write about the trials,
for people who committed war crimes, for people who took advantage of what was
going on to do what they wanted.Write about the weapons
that are finding their way into the hands of children, cheap and easy to use,
because they were left behind when the soldiers packed up and left.Write about the landmines,
the unexploded ordinances, the things that governments forgot were there or
just didn’t care.Write about ten years
later, or twenty, or thirty, or one, or six months, or the next day, about
what people do when the adrenaline of victory or defeat subsides and they’re
left with a world that they no longer understand, that they no longer know,
because they spent so long trying to destroy the old world that they forgot
that they would have to live in the new one.Write about the next
generation, who grew up with parents who flinched at loud noises and cousins
who could remember air raid sirens, who grew up doing drills they didn’t
understand because the people who made the drills couldn’t forget that one day
they might have been necessary.Write about the women
who stayed behind because they had no choice, about the women who stayed
behind because they wanted to, about the women who couldn’t stay behind because
there was no behind, because everywhere was a warzone and they were soldiers
because everyone was a soldier.Write about the children
who trained for a war that ended before they were old enough to take up
arms, where all they know is violence, not peace, how to destroy a city but not
how to build one or how to run one.Write about career
soldiers who no longer have a career because the war is over, there’s
peace, and so they find work for the highest bidder, for the person most
willing to give them a knife or a gun and throw them wherever a little muscle
and a lot of violence is needed.Write about the people
who did research on things nobody should ever research, who discovered
things they could never speak about, who rationalized what they did as science
while knowing it wasn’t.Write about everyday
people coping with everything that happened, with things they saw and
things they did and things they knew that they wouldn’t wish on their worst
enemy.
