text: “Daddy, can you tell me a bedtime story?” The father chuckled. “Of course! There’s one I’ve been waiting to share with you, and I think you’re just about big enough.” The father needed nothing more than the night light to see his son’s lips curling into a smile; the type of weak grin that could only be created by someone blissfully leaving the Earth, although only temporarily. And as sure as escape brings bliss, the father began to lull his son to sleep. “Amid a flurry of snow, a fire crackled, somewhere deep in the mountains where the howling winds could deafen and silence you all at once. The men that stood around it talked about rumors of death; a culling, brought down from the guards who overlooked them.” “You see, outside of this encampment, a war had been fought, and the prisoners’ side had finally lost. They had lived on hope, hope they would win the war and finally go home to their loved ones. Or a hope they would live, when they had signed up to die. But this hope left the men weak, and they reveled in it. Stories of mothers and girlfriends, of childhood activities and life before the war. Only one prisoner rejected this hope, as he understood he existed to die.” “By rejecting this hope, the man gave himself life, even if only to spite death. And this life gave him strength, which allowed him to fight. Whether it was spitting on a guard’s shoe or destroying the products of his own slave labor, the man existed now for two reasons: to fight firstly, and to die secondly. He embraced his death, but at the same time ran from it, because giving himself to death would require him to stop his fight.” “When this prisoner heard of the slaughter, he shook his head, and cursed the men who held him. But inside he felt nothing but indifference, a peace in the knowledge that it doesn’t matter who kills him, or how he dies: the result is the same either way. Some of the men cried, while some outright refused to believe it. But our prisoner continued to fight on anyway.” The father looked over at his son, who was listening intently with his eyes firmly shut. The man thought his son to be sleeping, so he continued on: “Five days, the men said. Five days until they were all executed. Some killed themselves, so they could die on their own terms. But this was even crazier, as they simply admitted that their life was not worth fighting for, when all they had done prior to internment was fighting for their life. Our prisoner decided instead that he had five days to make his tormentors' lives just a bit worse.” “And so he continued his pointless rebellion by not making his bed and by staring at the ground when a guard commanded him to look him in his eyes. He was chastised for his misdeeds; harsher labors and crueler physical punishment. The rumor said the execution was in three day now, and the man grew bolder, empowered by the coming of his end. He figured out a way out of their prison: in two days, a supply ship would come in. It would take a ton of luck, but they would smuggle themselves home. The plan was perfect. Either they died as was intended, or they made it home in one piece.” “But alas, it turned out to all be for naught, as the next morning a special order came into the communications bunker. Due to the need for secrecy, the captors’ government decided they were going to transform the prisoner camp into a top-secret weapons development facility. This would require that all the prisoners be slaughtered, the government said. No one could know what went on here, and they decided there was no point sending the men home to the rubble their country was left in. There would be no hope for the soldiers, and that same day the guards lined up the men and shot them in the head one at a time. All but one of the men died the way they lived. Without any purpose.” “The exception being our prisoner, of course. He died fighting, and as he stared down the barrel, he smiled, for he knew he could finally end his fighting.” And with the conclusion of his story, the father kissed his sleeping son on the forehead. He then went to sleep himself, where he dreamed of a fictional world in which there was no need for anyone to fight.