One Hundred Years of Solitude Blog Post #8

He was weary of the uncertainty, of the vicious circle of that eternal war that always found him in the same place, but always older, wearier, even more in the position of not knowing why, or how, or even when. There was always someone outside of the chalk circle. Someone who needed money, someone who had a son with whooping cough, or someone who wanted to go off and sleep forever because he could not stand the shit taste of the war in his mouth and who, nevertheless, stood at attention to inform him: “everything normal, Colonel.” And normality was precisely the most fearful part of that infinite war: nothing ever happened.

When I first read this, I was confused and did not understand why Marquez would add these descriptions to people who reported to the Colonel. They were "someone who needed money, someone who had a son with whooping cough, or someone who wanted to go off and sleep forever because he could not stand the shit taste of the war in his mouth". These descriptions seemed off place, especially the first two. I did not understand how they related to the infinity of the war. This excerpt stuck in my mind and I always thought about it. Would it be Marquez saying that people had more urgent needs, concerns, and desires, but all of the personal issues were forced to submit to the war, to the distant future, to the vulnerable hope? Colonel Aureliano Buendia knew how much people and himself desperately wanted some changes, not to mention some progress, for the war, but "nothing ever happened."