THE OTHERS

Meanwhile, Africa, South America, and the Middle East sighed with relief. Would this be the perfect opportunity to remind their people that their countries could offer them a more secure and certain existence than in rich countries?

During the war in Ukraine, Europe had been widely criticised for helping Ukrainians when it had blithely let Syrian refugees sink a few years earlier. However, the world was forced to realise once again that what mattered most in the rich and modern world wasn't so much the colour of the skin or the origin of the victims of war. It was rather what their country could provide the saviour nation in exchange for its help. Everything can be exchanged for goods in the rich and modern world, even human lives.

On 12th December, 2025, the United States and Australia launched the first strike, two weeks after China's invasion of Taiwan. Europe followed on 16th December. Do you know how people fight when they are afraid to die, but they still want to take the risk anyway to get the spoils? It is simple, they pretend to fight for a while then they give up well before the fatal blow.

Nobody wanted that war, neither China, nor Europe, nor the Pacific, nor the United States and especially not the island which produced more than three quarters of the production of electronic chips in the whole world. A compromise had to be found before China or Russia decided to push the dangerous nuclear button. We ought to save more than three quarters of the electronic chips of the planet as well as the precious rich countries. 

Again, my military experience and my language skills put me in the forefront of action in the war in the Pacific. India found itself drawn into the conflict, losing almost a quarter of its young population and 70% of the country was completely destroyed. The United States, Europe and Australia thanked India wholeheartedly for its active participation, and then... then nothing. So what? They had expressed their appreciation, hadn't they? That was more than enough, wasn't it? Such goes the gratitude of the man who owes nothing to no one.

Japan next door looked on sympathetically, happy to keep its distance behind the American, European and Australian Armed Forces. Old people don't get sent to the battlefields, do they?

With the war, rich men forgot their environmental promises for another three more years. The war spat in the face of the Earth in large quantities, carbon dioxide as well as other pollutants and chemicals while the planet continued to bear with us until the day when it would decide to give us back into our face, our carbon, our pollutants, and our false promises.

Finally, on 18th July, 2028, after three years of fierce  confrontations to avoid the worst, China, the United States, Australia and Europe came to an agreement with the Treaty of Victoria: Taiwan would go to China in return for sharing equally the production of three quarters of the planet's electronic chips. For me, peace brought back the ghost of Feliz and all my past choices. I engulfed myself deeper in my military career back in Poland in an attempt to forget.