Writing for a Living Sucks Part VI: Kalashnikov Blues
Consider the Avtomat Kalashnikova model 1947, a beast made for sound and fury:
Anyone
with a nominally decent grasp of the action movie genre would know it
as the AK-47, or possibly as the Kalashnikov. Fully automatic, it spits
out 7.62 millimeters of pure death at a rate of 600 rounds per minute
and with a maximum effective range of about 400 meters. The M67
projectile that erupts from the its barrel was designed to blossom in
human flesh at 13 centimeters from the point of entry, causing massive
tissue trauma, substantial organ damage, and a particularly nasty exit
wound. Due to its unsurpassed durability and reliability, it quickly
became the standard infantry rifle of the Red Army and is still
currently used by most of the member states of the former Warsaw Pact.
It is the favored thunderstick of irascible mujahideen,
genocidal warmongers, Third World hordes, European extremists, and
communist firebrands. It was this implement of destruction, this potent
totem of human wrath in the blood-encrusted fists of an angry and
desperate peasant that turned a ragtag band of barefoot farm yokels
into a formidable army that succeeded in driving the American war
machine out of Vietnam. Truly, this primitive-looking union of wood and
steel is one of the most terrifying instruments of warfare ever
invented.
Nevertheless,
awesome as the AK-47 may be, no one in his right mind would deign it
fit to be used as a farming tool. Against flesh and bone it is
undoubtedly the stuff of nightmares, but against the earth it is the
dullest spade imaginable. Tools, like the men who make them, have their
own natures. A thing that goes against its nature is liable to break. A
plough taken into the battlefield will shatter beneath the hail of
bullets. A rifle tied to a beast and dragged across rice paddies will
rot in the mud.
A storysmith compelled to tell tales for which he cares little will lose his soul.
