Chameleon Magazine

There was once a General who ruled over a nation that had forgotten peace. Every few years, he led his people into another war — not because they were threatened, but because he promised them a brighter tomorrow if they would just fight one more time.

To his soldiers, he held up a shining medal, shaped like a carrot of gold.

“Victory will feed your children,” he said. “Glory will make your names eternal.”

And the soldiers believed him. They followed the carrot’s glimmer through smoke and dust, through deserts and ruins, across lands that once bore crops but now only bones.

Each time they thought they were near it, the General raised the carrot higher.

“Not yet,” he said. “We’re almost there.”

And so they marched again — hungrier, fewer, older.

In the capital, children grew up seeing parades for victories that brought no bread. The carrot hung in the sky like a false sun, burning bright but giving no warmth. When at last the General died, his successor lifted the same golden carrot and said,

“Brothers, the dream is not yet fulfilled. Follow me.”

But this time, the soldiers did not move. One man stepped forward, dropped his weapon, and said,

“Let the carrot rot. We are tired of chasing what will never feed us.”

That night, for the first time in generations, the fields were silent — and something small and green began to grow from the earth.

“A promise forever dangled but never delivered turns warriors into donkeys and peace into a mirage.”