"To be feared is to fear: no one has been able to strike terror into others and at the same time enjoy peace of mind."
-Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD)
The PriceThe unbearable but inevitable predictability of each day
Accusations running through my head
plaguing me
anguish
indescribably pain
"be brave. be strong.
it's not your fault.
it had to be done"
No. It didn't. Nothing had to be done.
A mindless act.
Now what has it caused me?
I'm a twisted shell of what I was
it confronts me
everywhere
staring
surrounding
I did it. I'm to blame
Blame me! Condemn me!
"no one's to blame.
you didn't know what you
(did u mean to repeat 'you'?) you were doing"
But I knew what the result would be.
I could have stopped it.
I pressed the button. Now I suffer the consequences.
How was I to know that my life would detonate as well?
Shattering and falling pieces around me. Irretrievable
Out of reach.
How was I to know that my finger was edging inch by inch closer....
to what?...
to this.
I wish it had been one quick unpreventable action-
but no.
it was slow. I delighted in the power I held.
I had the time to stop.
"there wasn't any time"
I saw.
I saw the terror.
I heard.
I heard the screams.
My eyes had opened. The sorrow and the anguish.
Soiled and stained with the knowledge of what I have caused.
Will I ever be clean again?
Will that day...no..will that eternity
ever stop playing through my mind?
etching deeper, deeper into my heart?
"it had to be done"
nothing had to be done!
There were women. There were children.
all gone
I do not deserve life.
I do not belong. Forever I will be set apart.
outcast.
how can I live?
what a price we pay for revenge
what are the rewards?
...is there a price we pay for peace?
"people like us.
it is not peace we want"
This is the price I pay
I deserve to die
This time I will make it quick
At last I will have peace
......silence........
Remember?she sits at the kitchen table
her hands neatly placed
they show him excitedly engaged
a proud husband
a brave soldier
he fought well-
was awarded the DSO
for bravery under fire
yet he could not save his
wife the pain of loss
as he lay dying
on a battlefield
as just another muddy figure
Given a town's farewell for its courageous son
"never to be forgotten"
now, she is the only one who
remembers
how will they remember her
if they don't even remember he
who was so brave?
she sits at the kitchen table
her hands neatly placed-
hands where the skin now runs in folds
and bunches around the wedding ring
still tight on her wrinkled finger
this is how they found her
when they came to see why she
would not pick up the phone
they came to clean
and pack the house
and enclose her life
in boxes
to be sent to the Salvation Army