World peace (standard:other, 1019 words)
Author: Lev821	Added: Mar 08 2013	Views/Reads: 3081/2424	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
The path to peace is strewn with the flesh of enemies.

When a bullet struck the side of Erast Urbansky's knee, on the 24th of
October, 302 years from your present, shot by Yevgein Garin from a 
sidearm, as he was chasing him through dense woods on the outskirts of 
Ostrov near the Russian/Estonian border, nobody could have known then, 
that that bullet would be the very last one ever fired in warfare. That 
was the final full-stop on conflict. 

They exchanged coarse words, but the pursuer simply turned and walked
away, leaving Erast to stagger and limp to get help. Yevgein went back 
to his small army, a division of the Russian militia. 

They had got what they wanted, the disbanding of a small resistance
group opposed to the president who seemed to be having too many 
interests in other countries, appearing to be rather friendly with 
America and Argentina, enemies as far as the resistance was concerned. 
It meant the militia strand had won their battle, and all conflict in 
the middle-east had reached a compromise the previous year, settling 
down into simple disagreements, but no violence. No hostility. Nowhere 
in the world. Crime had faded away, and the world settled into what 
could only be called ‘World peace'. 

For hundreds of years political parties and dissident factions had
always fought and argued about getting what they wanted, getting to a 
state of peace, but peace their way. They all vied for the same thing, 
for harmony, but the path to such a place was always met with 
hostility, conflict, and blood, almost as if they never actually wanted 
peace. They simply enjoyed the aggression, enjoyed violence like 
watching an action film or a boxing match, the crowd cheering on with 
bloodlust and excitement. 

It seemed to have been hardwired into the psyche of the new generations
that violence wasn't a part of their make-up. Nobody went hunting. 
Sports fans always respected those of opposing sides. No school bullies 
were ever reported in any school. Violence had faded from the mind of 
humans, and it also seemed to emanate though to the animals, 
carnivores, and even insects. It seems they had all adapted into being 
herbivores, and nature had provided a more bountiful crop of food with 
more greenery and vegetation to account for it. 

People got along fine. There were disagreements, but not even any raised
voices. It was simply a case of: ‘I believe this....', and the other 
person saying: ‘Ok, I don't believe that, I believe this instead....', 
and then them both forgetting about it and having a coffee and carrying 
on playing cards. 

It seemed nature was adapting to it. Evolution was at work, and violence
and war were things of past, the path that had to be trodden to get to 
a utopian planet. 

Now, here it was. World peace. 

It had been like that for 62 years. There were people who reminisced
about the past, who remembered it vividly, and there were museums 
featuring old weapons and pictures, but of course, there was always the 
underlying sense of trust in others that was never quite realised. It 
meant therefore that countries still retained an army, still kept 
weapons ready to fire at a moments notice. Just incase an enemy came 
over the horizon. An enemy that didn't exist. 

It was the ‘what if...?' factor. What if Spain decided to expand to
invade another country and take over? What if Thailand decided it 
didn't like Norway and sent a nuclear bomb? These were all underlying 
factors which meant that countries were prepared should the past ever 
come back. The weaponry was all there and ready, kept in its place by 
peace. None were ever decommissioned, and even the ones that there had 
been in the past were a drop in the ocean to the amount they had, and 
they had always been replaced by newer, updated models. 

No country ever disbanded its army. There was always a kind of police
force that patrolled the cities, but they never had anything to do, and 
that became a problem, because nature had never intended for there to 
be peace in the world, neither its opposite, chaos. 

There was always a balance of opposites, which kept the world turning,
which kept oiled the machine of life. 


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