poetry/spoken word

Boys and their Toys

by Siege Malvar

My friend James is talking about Airsoft, this new thing he's crazy for. Twice a month, he dresses up in military gear with a bunch of other guys he met on the Airsoft network in the internet, and they go play war games in abandoned warehouses and closed down schools. They shoot each other with plastic pellets propelled by the sheer force of hot air they pump their guns with.

This, apparently, makes James a man.

I am tempted to tell James about my uncle; he actually went to a real war. My uncle never wanted to be in any war, but that's how things are when your parents can't afford to send you to college. My uncle never played Airsoft to be a man, and unlike James, he actually got shot by a real bullet. I'm pretty sure my uncle and the enemy who shot him between his eyes never met each other before on the internet, and if that man who shot my uncle is still alive now, he must have had spent some sleepless nights dreaming of my uncle, and of the moment when it was either him or my uncle, and he had no choice but to pull the trigger. He probably wouldn't be playing war games with James too.

My uncle went home from the war in a box. He was buried in a casket previously used by a rich Chinese businessman who had his remains cremated, and thus, no longer had any use for the casket my uncle was eventually buried in.

James is asking me to join him next week. “Be a man,” he tells me. “Play with the big boys.”

I smile. I want to tell James how sorry I am that I am not man enough to tell him how I wish he and his friends who play war games with their toy guns get drafted into a real war, a war they do not believe in, a dance of war drums pounding louder than their tell-tale hearts.

War is no game. But you don't know this, James, until the word “casualty” is used to describe you, but then, by then it would be too late.

War is no game. But you won't know this, James, until those you left behind are left to fend for themselves while the enemy troops march nearer.

War is no game. But you don't know this, James, because you never saw an infant thrown in the air and caught, skewered on a bayonet.

War is no game, James. And you'll never know this, because your mother was never raped in front of you, and you never had your mouth wrapped around the barrel of a real gun.

War is no game. But by the way you post your photos clad in Airsoft gear in your Facebook tells me you don't know this, James, and the depth of your understanding of the implications of war is limited by the megapixels on your digital camera.

But if you really want to be a man, James, then your country needs you. There are rebel forces in the jungle who want progress for the nation in the form of cold, hard cash delivered in unmarked bills, and a man of your courage, a man of your bravery, a man of your military skills, is who we need to fight this war.

So, tell me, James, what are you doing next Saturday?

Boys and Their Toys is a spoken word piece commissioned by the British Council and Apples & Snakes as part of Speechless 2008.

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