Child, the Peace-Killer

I was twelve when I started the war.

It was 1996. The year Dolly was cloned, the year Centennial Olympic Park was bombed during the Atlanta games. It was the year the Yankees won their last World Series, the year a football star named O.J. Simpson killed his ex-wife and her friend.

I remember that summer, not because it stuck out for any monumental reason, but because it didn't. I remember it because it was my life, our life, before the great war. The only war.

More history. It was the year NASA became aware of microscopic life forms on a rock hailing from the planet Mars. It was the year my father was made SETI Institute Principal Investigator, and it was the year the Galthians chose to extend their four-fingered hands to the human race.

It was the year I killed the first alien ambassador the Galthians sent, the only one they'd end up sending. Nathrang was the only chance we'd been given, and after I killed him there was nothing more of peace. I know I'm supposed to say I didn't mean to, that it had been an accident or some kind of giant misunderstanding. I know that's the only thing anyone wants to hear, but it isn't true. It was no accident, not then. It was no misunderstanding. I wanted him dead, and though it seems unfortunate now, I cannot deny that I killed the little alien in cold blood.

If only someone had been there to stop me, if only. The thought's gone through my head so many times, only recently I've started wondering. If someone had been there, would they have stopped me? Or would they have taken my place, pulling a knife from the cupboard (as I did) to carve their guilty name (instead of mine) into the Galthian's childlike body?

I have to think so, now, in light of what has happened. That not only did the aliens choose the wrong house to send their ambassador, they also chose the wrong species, the wrong planet. War might not have been inevitable, but it was probable. Likely, even. I can't hold myself responsible for all of it. I can't do that.

Neither can I live as anyone else. This life is mine, but the death I'll experience will be the death of billions.