Worth Fighting For

A short prose piece...

“Some things are worth fighting for. Freedom, happiness, acceptance, equality, peace, end of hunger, compassion, kindness, love, life… I fight for these things everyday.” The small girl looked up into the tall man’s dark brown eyes with her hazel ones as she said this. He was a little taken aback. How could one so tiny fight for anything? He stared at her for a moment trying to work out what it was she meant by this profound statement. Finally he gave up and asked her.
“I fight for the freedom to grow up happy. I live in a war torn country, I could die just by putting one foot out the door of my house but I do so because if I don’t it will mean the end of my fight for the freedom to have a happy childhood. After all what child can possibly be happy locked in a house for days on end for years? I fight for happiness by trying to find the good within all the bad around me. I deserve to be happy and I want to be happy, so I fight for it. It would be easy to stop and just be sad because my mom and dad are dead. I fight to be accepted by my guardians. They don’t like me because I am a constant reminder that their own daughter has died and they can’t accept that I am not her. They try to make me be her but I fight against them. I want them to love me as equally as they loved their own daughter so I fight for that too but it’s hard because they are so sad about their little girl. Peace is the easiest to fight for because every day that I live through is another day I can grow up and each day leads to the day when I can find a voice to bring peace to us. I end my own hunger because of the war there isn’t enough food to go around so I have to fight for food. I fight for compassion. It would easy to be mean to others and not want to help them, to not be kind at a time like this when I should be more worried about my own life but I fight for that too because this war was started by hatred. Compassion and kindness to all can end that and save my life. And are not the last two obvious? I want to be loved and to live.”
After this long speech the man looked at the girl in shock. He didn’t know what to say. He knew she was right but how could one so small be so wise? He continued to stare at her with his mouth agape. Gently the little girl asked,
“Mr. Soldier man? Are you sure this war is worth fighting now?”