The way I like this

I can’t remember when the precise moment of my downfall was. It couldn’t be after the first time they raided my village, we were still good then; it wasn’t when the first pack of miners got murdered in the heat of the Tower Battle. But around or in between these events fate took a turn for the worse. Very soon after, my beautiful blue village showed nothing but a sea of green and red, the enemy’s colors. My second in command came rushing to me and all of his expressions mirrored the terror that surrounded us. “My lord, the tower was destroyed! The enemies have taken the mines and there’s no more gold to keep bringing militia! It’s over!” His words came abrupt and uncontainable and they fell on my head heavy as stone.

At that time I assumed he was exaggerating, but it now seems to me that his last phrase was most accurate. Merely hours later I was informed that he had perished by the barracks. I remember how those horns that in one time announced prosperity and peace building up in my kingdom now incarnated our doom, telling me how this one or anotherbuilding, trace of our time in history was being attacked and destroyed. I was not at all fooled by the confusion that showed on the battlefield, I knew that disgrace leaned on our side and very firmly rested on the scale.

Our defeat was final the moment our Town Center crumbled upon the most vulnerable members of the community; the ones that I had ordered took refuge in the place I thought to be safer; maidens, children, the elderly. They showed no respect for their lives, like hounds they fell on them. And then, I was able to see our warriors’ pale faces as they struggled to fight when they heard the screams of their families, smelling the fire that burned their homes, watching their friends die. When the Town Center came down, that was it for them, they gave up.

Being surrounded by that tremendous disaster, you would think that I was close to becoming insane, to run out of air yelling in desperation, or that I’d be doing something. I wasn’t. All I could do was stare. I would turn my head over and over and it came to a point when I no longer recognized the faces of my people, when the colors that separated our sides became indistinct. It came a point when everything I saw seemed to be a repetition of something else previously seen, maybe with different people in different uniforms, but the same. We were doing the exact same things. I still don’t understand how I did not get killed while I vacillated between going down on my knees and running out of there.

I didn’t get the chance to do either of those; I was dragged away by some officers who were bravely trying to save the life of a king whom in their eyes was neither coward nor stupid, but wise and brave. Or maybe they did see me just as I was, a defeated old wimp scared to death. I’ll never know and too soon after most of my keepers were gone. Reality sat flat on my chest and right there I leaned and wept. I can still hear, see and smell the death of my nation.

The enemy retrieved only after acknowledging that there was no way that we could bring ourselves back on our feet again. They left the battlefield only after seeing that the survivors had no more spirit in them than the rocks on the field, and not even half that strength left. Right then, our surrender was a mere formality, one that took form in us being forced to flee our homeland like rats, carrying as much or as little as we had been able to save.

Only weeks later, still on the hide and just inches into the endless path of recovery; some of my remaining scouts brought me a boy. He was a young survivor whose skin had been almost entirely roasted by the fires in the Town Center. What a heavy price to pay for a little pride on my part. What a weight to carry. Do you know how that feels soldier? Do you know what it feels to have the burden of 40,000 dead souls in your heart? I shook many of those men’s hands in the early morning, only to be punished by the stink of their corpses at dusk.

From then on not much is said on our every day routine. Adults now pick up the dull work of building a new home and picking up food with ghostly eyes. Our children don’t know what to do, they play but they don’t laugh, they eat but they don’t rub their tummies with delight right after and they don’t take naps. We’ve been stolen our peace. The soldiers now try to help the villagers, but their hands are clumsy. They don’t have the skills required to lift the humbled scraps of a city and know nothing that’s actually needed these days. So most of them just sit on the grass and watch days go by, rusting up and feeling useless. If we keep like this, we will be close to dissolve, to part ways to give every item of our diminished community the opportunity to find a new life the way they feel its best.

Now I am alone. In my old age forced to sweat and strive to bring a bunch of skeptical villagers, some children and wounded soldiers together and forward. I’m low on faith, drive and courage; pretty low. And the remainder of it lies on the possibility that somewhere, sometime soon enough; someone who’s able and willing will come to help us. Though I wouldn’t know how they would do it, and I may not live to see the day. I know we might be destined to fade away, but these days I’ve become patient, much more reasonable. Too little, too late.

“But Sir! There’re still things to hope for!” “Boy I can’t count the times I’ve said this to myself” “But don’t laugh Sir! I know who can help us! I know!”

- Dramatized account of an Age of Empires defeat -

Alguna vez tuve este momento en que jugaba Age of Empires II y fracasé mortalmente en mis intentos por salvar a mis aldeanos. Creo que a todos nos ha pasado. Y por todos me refiero sólo a algunos. Y así. En verdad, en verdad, en verdad fue un trauma para mí ver cómo se morían todos mis monitos, cómo destruían mi town center, mis casitas, mis puestos de avanzada, TODO. Por eso ahora yo diseño los escenarios en lugar de jugar justamente. Me rendí pues. Pero sigue siendo un juego muy entretenido y que me gusta mucho. Es como tener polly pockets... hum... como... como polly pockets que se mueven solas, que gruñen y se matan entre ellas en la computadora, y que sangran. Pero son maravillosas. Extraño el juego de hecho. Quisiera utilizarlo otra vez.