In the Land of Praying Mantis

The first day of April begins. The once lush nara trees are stripped of its green canopies as the wind blows warm against the thick picket of the jungle. The new sprout will come out soon in a month where the praying mantises will be feeding on the soft saps of the trees that offer them a juicy delight after a long sleepless night of prayers. They remember that the past few days were like living hell where machines and humans with gritting teeth were hungry for living blood that it was such an honor to see their own kind fall to the ground as cadavers. All of these are happening just for the thirst of fulfilling their man’s belief. How terrible! In the tribe of the faithful, where prayer is the arche of existence, it is such a horrible sight, especially for the young, to continue praying with all this crackling and strafing in the jungle that result to mats of lifeless bodies and dissected guts, laid un-honored by men who blindly believe in the pragmatic sense of killing. Their machines, which a long time ago had never intruded the mantises in their night of prayers, have now morphed into indestructible and ferocious monsters that end all life that cross its way. Yes, all mantises witnessed these and how they loathed every sight of it. What is more horrible is to see men, who were once the herald of protection and the steward of nature have become the slaves of machines and as a result, killing his own kind without qualms. Such a blunder for human race to make machines and turn them into deities! Yet their belief has paved off well – to think of fighting to achieve a greater good in bid of a few lives that do not adhere by means of these machines. Not just that, even the young ones, the mothers, the elders, the natives, pay the price for all of these. Woe!

These mantises had been praying night and day asking nothing in vast cycles of life but a nourishment of soul where all creatures would live in harmony to praise heaven for its gifts. Yet no matter how they shout their lauds, nothing happens for it is impossible now for fools’ souls who have been devoured by the devil of warfare to change. Isn’t it an irony that amidst the cross constellation and the bright crescent moon, a herd of praying mantises are flinching to pray for peace yet given a raining bullet of destruction in return? Trapped in between two camps of fools, they feel abandoned, oppressed, and doomed. Such a pity that even yesterday, another young mantis was shut to death while reciting his morning matins…and how many more mantises will be knocked off in the coming days all for the sake of ideal peace? Woe!

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P.S. South, what has become of you?