Indifferent

My book, The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite, has reached a part where she is living very rough in 1916 Berlin and has been deserted by a close friend. It made me think about the war, and how the attitudes in this book of the Germans are no more hostile and hatred than the British attitudes were during the war. It reminded me of Thomas Hardy's poem 'The Man He Killed.' He writes about two characters who were enemies by law but in reality not so different. He says that in other circumstances, they probably would have been friends;


Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him and he at me,
And killed him in his place.

I shot him dead because –
Because he was my foe,
Just so – my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although
He thought he'd 'list perhaps,
Off-hand like – just as I –
Was out of work –
had sold his traps –
No other reason why.

Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown. - Thomas Hardy, The Man Who He Killed









Some lyrics, by A Fine Frenzy, I felt were also quite relevant;

Help me out said the minnow to the trout
I was lost and found myself swimming in your mouth
Help me chief
I've got plans for you and me
I swear upon this riverbed
I'll help you feel young again

Not your every day circumstance
The hummingbird taking coffee with the ants

Please, I know that we're different
We were one cell in the sea in the beginning
And what we're made of was all the same once
We're not that different after all. - The Minnow and the Trout, A Fine Frenzy