The Price of Freedom

It was a sunny day on the grass laden fields of Ratra. A breeze of icy feel swept through the plains, weaving in and out of the grasses and through the hair of two people on a stroll. One was a woman, middle-aged, tall and slender with a lined face and sad, brown eyes. By her side was her son, of teenage and in face, a perfect replica of his mother. But where his mother was the epitome of calm and quiet, he was the paragon of energy and activity.

“Why are we here ma?” he asked.

“To answer your question” she replied.

“What question?” The child was unable to understand where his mother was headed with this talk and walk. But that was only understandable, what with more than half his talks being questions. “Not so long ago, you had asked your father for freedom, believing our control over you was unnecessary. You were rash with words. But that is not my concern. The true purpose of our walk lies in a belief of yours that you let out in your haste to prove your stance correct.”

The conversation surfaced from the memories of the child. ‘After all, it’s not like it will cost you anything’, he had said. He looked down at his feet, his brief moment of guilt washed over by a rush to defend himself. “I did and I still believe so”.

“Then let me tell you a story, from a few centuries before our time, when our nation was a colony. The story is of a man named High General Korsaar. He was one man who was more than anything, desirous to free his country from outside rule. He was a patriot and a military genius. So he chose war. His charisma gave him an army and his passions gave him a journey. So they marched, forever yearning to take the capital. And he did, after five years of bitter struggle, he took it, and our nation was free.”

“So what did it cost him?”

Even as he asked that question, the plains halted and gave way to a brief cliff. Hundreds of meters below them, another vast plain stretched, but this time, instead of grass, there was an equal number of graves. Hundreds of thousands of gravestones stood in a vast expanse stretching for miles.

“Everything”.