The Fool could smell smoke as he walked deeper into the cave, away from the Devil. He felt his way further and further from the opening, where the giant silhouette of a demon still waited for him. Forward it got darker until he couldn’t see anything at all.
Suddenly he found himself on a great plain. The ground was scorched. Some of it was still smoldering. In the distance he could see a vast army retreating. The field was covered with the dead. Right behind him stood an army watching the retreating army.
As soon as the other army disappeared over the horizon, the army at the Fool’s back began picking up swords, arrows, armor, and anything else that could be used again. The battle had been fought, but the war was far from over. Some say the war has never ended.
A soldier led an elephant over the scorched earth in search of swords. He picked them up two at a time when he found them before shoving them into a saddlebag on the elephant’s side.
They didn’t know what hit them, the soldier said, we got them on the run now. The Fool could see the soldier knew that the opposing army would be back with more soldiers, better equipment, and not surprised.
The earth there reminded the Fool of the Nameless One’s killing fields and their talking body parts, but it seemed more hopeless here. The armies attacked each other and sometimes one of the armies took a meter or two.
The elephant seemed tired. It had scratches all over from the battle. This land also wasn’t one where elephants come from, so the Fool thought the elephant to be homesick as well. It just slowly walked across the field while the soldier fed the bag swords.
The elephant is sad, the soldier said, because he knows the war won’t be won by us. The elephant knows he will never go home. I’ll be lucky if I do.
The sky was blue with little white fluffy clouds. It was a perfect day, if it weren’t for the markings of violence and carnage all around.
And then the Devil was standing at the Fool’s side, breathing heavily as if it was lusting after the corpses and blood-soaked earth. The Fool felt a primal fear creep up his spine to the base of his skull.
This is the world, the Devil hissed. Why even try? There is no point to anything, so why is there an idea of hope? Man takes one step forward and then inevitably slides back into war and oppression.
The Fool saw a single sunflower sprout growing out of the blackened soil. He knew that he must continue his path. He didn’t have to believe in the war, but he could believe in the sunflower that grew out of the battlefield. One battle didn’t end anything.
The Fool walked on till the world became black again, and he could smell the sea.