Steem Fiction Contest #3 : My Preference

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Leaving Veenu and going back to duty, his life was threatened just thinking about it, but duty is duty.
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There was pandemonium in his heart as he felt he would become the target of a bullet in the forest in the next search operation.

He silently wiped his eyes. He was a commando, but he was also a husband, and he loved his wife more than himself.

The teacher placed the manuscript from his hand on the desk and looked over the edge of his glasses at the class. "How should the story go on? Who has a suggestion?"

There was a moment's silence, then rustling here and there, and the first to raise her hand was Xaya. The teacher gave her an encouraging nod and she stood up and said in her soft voice, "If the guy, Terence or whatever his name is, loves his wife more than his life, then he needs to stop putting her through these warlike things. He needs to go to his superior and ask for his release and go home and look for a civilian job."

Three of the other girls nodded and murmured words of agreement.

"Other suggestions, other ideas?" the teacher asked.

Naidoo shouted without standing up or even raising his hand, "If the hero already knows he's going to be hit by a bullet in the next few days, then the story has to go on like that!" Some boys nodded, others looked doubtful.
"The two could be combined," Ivy suggested, "because this soldier Terence could ask for his discharge and be sent on a final command and then get killed."

"No, that would be too tragic!" someone called in. From the very back came the shout, "Like Uriah and Bath-sheba - Terence must perish so that someone high up can have his wife!"

The class fell into disarray, everyone shouting in confusion, some in agreement, some against, and there was also another suggestion, "Veenu must take matters into her own hands, this Terence is incapable of it. If he thinks duty is duty, then he has stopped thinking. Veenu has to sort it out and tell him that he has to choose between his war games and her."

Silence in the class. Everyone looks at the teacher. The latter takes a deep breath and says, "Thank you for your suggestions. We will discuss this further tomorrow. But you have already seen today: finishing a story that someone else started is a task that cannot be solved without questioning the story that was started."

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

photo: ty-ty