Please note: this is 100% fiction!

He watched as people around him carefully placed a lit match inside the lantern and then looked down at the unlit lantern in his hand. Why are we doing this? He wondered. Sure, we’ve won the war but at what cost? People died. People lost limbs, became disable and never the same. Why couldn’t we as an advanced human civilization achieve peace some other way that didn’t involve lives?

A slight tug at his right sleeve jolted him out of his thoughts. He looked down and saw a boy holding a lit match. His eyes were glistening with tears. He’s lost someone.

He got down on one knee so he was at eye level with the boy, smiled, and lit his lantern with the match before handing the lantern to the boy. “Here you go, little man.”

The boy stared for a moment before accepting the lantern. Then he smiled a quick smile before turning away to join the crowd.

Still on his knee, he sighed. What a lucky kid, never had to witness the battlefield, and probably never will. “Three,” someone shouted in the distance, he could see the children with lantern had their knees bent, eager to send their lanterns soaring, “two, one, liftoff!” All at once, hundreds of lanterns soared into the sky, dotting the moonless night like fireflies. So many lives lost, he thought as he stood up, suddenly feeling lucky to be alive.

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