The idea of the language of killing mirrors the tragic realities that we are witnessing in Palestine, Lebanon, and the broader Middle East. The violence executed by the Israeli colonizing government through a one man-show called Netanyahu raises critical questions about the meaning of killing, its justification, and the tragic effects on humanity. War language dismisses all forms of life beyond just physical death, in other words, killing does not stop at only taking lives, it also ends the idea of identity, culture, land, and future generations. It becomes about erasing memories and the hope for sovereignty.

The war machine is a non-human or anti-human force that symbolizes military forces, drones, and other systems that is detached from human empathy. Those involved in this violence may become anesthetised, as if their consciousness has died, turning them into savage machines of destruction.

War as a form of communication is a dialogue that leads only to death and devastation. In Gaza, for example, the Israel government’s actions do not want to communicate negotiation or peace, but domination and eradication. The killing becomes the end of dialogue or what I like to call the death dialogue.

This project began with an urge to questions the language of war, how it communicates violence and affects both the killer and its victims. As I delved deeper into these questions, I imagined a fictional story “Fiction-inary”. In my story, the victims of the killer do not just die, they turn into invisible ghost-like beings who continue to exist in a different form of life. Meanwhile, the killer is stuck in his own bubble of rubble, unable to change or live. In the end, his killing leads to his own self-destruction, showing how the act of killing eventually consumes him. I wanted to show from my fictional story how war dehumanizes people and creates a cycle of endless destruction.

I expanded this study and began to explore the idea of the “language of war” using Richard Iveson’s thoughts from his book Being and Not Being. Iveson argues that the language of killing turns both the killer and the victim into something less human, pushing them into a state of non-being, where life is continuously erased.

In my research on the language of war, I want to connect the dots between Iveson’s idea to the killer in my fiction. The killer is like a war machine, a non-human or anti-human without emotions or humanity. Unlike the victims, who become ghost-like after death, the killer is trapped in non-being state unable to escape the cycle of violence. This reflects on the concept of zombies that Iveson’s talks about in his book that people involved in violence lose their identity and become just tools of destruction.

In my story, the killer does not only destroy others but is also destroyed by his own actions. The language of war, as Iveson explains, strips away humanity from both the killer and the victim, turning them into lifeless beings. My killer becomes a zombie, endlessly repeating violence with no chance of reclaiming his humanity.

By seeing the killer as a zombie, I highlight how the language of war dehumanizes everyone involved. It not only destroys bodies but also wipes out life itself. This raises deeper questions about whether killing is a real solution or just a dead-end path that erases identity, the future, and hope for renewal. My killer is trapped in this loop, showing how the language of war traps both sides in a never-ending crisis.

Research Questions

Why is terminating lives considered the language of war? How do we understand this ancient language in the present? Is the language of killing trying to terminate the body, ideology, the individual, the collective, land, nature, or animal life?

Is this kind of communication a dead end, or is it an open-ended target for more killing? Who are the ones who speak this language, are they human, non-human, or anti-human? Are they programmed to kill, or has their consciousness been killed, transforming them into something unconscious as they commit these acts?

Is the language of killing considered a solution, or does it refuse the process and seek to jump straight to the end? Is it about terminating history and the present, while deciding on an illusionary future?

If the killer remains alone after all this, does that give meaning to life? How does living with a dead mind change what life is? Can life interact with this kind of killer, or must life rid itself of the killer by killing them too? Does life birth another killer to repeat the cycle, again and again? Are we caught in a vicious circle, and if so, why? What’s the point?

Is this about being and not being? Is it about repetition? Birthing and un-birthing? Anti-birthing? Is this decided by us, or are we simply playing our part in it?

Are we trying to re-understand and re-learn, or are we in a state of post-understanding and post-learning? What does post-killing look like? Is it killing the future before we even reach it?

Does terminating life absurdly give life? What kind of life? A life of ghosts? Does killing give birth to a world populated by ghosts? How do ghosts live? Do they kill other ghosts to exist alone? Or do ghosts haunt the killer, leading to more killing and transforming life into something ghost-like? In this world, does ghost life matter more than bodily life? And if so, why does body life no longer matter?

Does war erase history to create an illusionary future where one side wins by erasing the other? Or does it trap everyone in an endless cycle of destruction?

When all is destroyed, what future will remain?…

Fiction-ination (Fiction + Imagination)

In my fiction-ination, life becomes unseen, untouched, unsensed. Bodies become invisible; things or objects become the movable entities, changing with messy-ness, like an endless process, as if Lego blocks are built and destroyed non-stop. But each birthing form is different from the other. Invisible beings negotiate their ideas through a body of objects because their bodies don’t exist anymore. The objects become the life of a form through the language of the invisible being who has been terminated by the killer.

The visible killer becomes invisible to ghosts but remains visible to the form, so he continues killing, but this time, terminating objects or forms continuously. And the invisible ghosts continue building forms on and on, endlessly, until the form becomes too big that it unintentionally tumbles and kills the visible killer. But unlike the invisible ghosts, the killer cannot transform into an invisible ghost, because he is not a human, but a war machine, an anti-human force that lacks the ability to evolve into something beyond destruction.

When the killer is finally crushed, his body becomes a visible, terminated form, an empty shell of violence. The invisible ghosts continue building a form using the remains of the killer, and it grows into a tower that stretches beyond Earth, into space, until it reaches another planet called “Shrek”. The visible beings on planet” Shrek” start to wonder, curious about this form, they decided to embark on a journey to the unknown. They pass through the form, traveling until they reach Earth, which has been abandoned by life, leaving only the form behind.

The form becomes a tunnel between their planet “Shrek” and Earth. The invisible ghosts begin communicating with the new visible “Shrek” beings from the “Shrek” planet through the form, and they start cooperating and building. Life begins to take shape, shifting from invisible to visible and vice versa. Except for the killer, who remains trapped in his own bubble, an empty, inhuman relic of war… alone in his rubble.

The killer kills to get on top of the body and others, to become higher in power and arrogance, but bodies and power don’t last forever, they decay, so the killer will fall with the deadless, and the innocent dead will rise with spiritful .

TO BE CONTINUED…