 | | The Connecticut Shooting |
I wonder... I wonder if you had a morning like mine. I woke up, I made up the bed, I tucked in my sheets and I even collected a little laundry. I dressed, did my hair, looked in the mirror and I went on with my day.
A bowl of cereal. A few bills paid. Some tidying here and some tidying there before I settled down, before my desk, to start my day of work. Emails checked, phone checked... ah, Facebook... not yet checked.
All is well I see. A friend has a new job opportunity, another has a new skiing photo and another... has a post... about Connecticut? About assault weapons? And then another post, and another, and another and... I immediately jump over to the BBC to see what is going on.
And there it is. A single headline. 27 dead. Kindgarden. Kids. School. Dead. in Connecticut.
I wonder... did you feel like me when you heard? Did your insides drip fire, blood and water down its insides and did your skin go cold? and numb? And did your brain freeze? Freeze with disbelief and belief all at once?
Because you know you've been here before. We've been here before. Always. And did the crossroads fill you? Did you feel the trap closing in around you as I did? "We've been here before... We've been here before."
And we will be here again.
For nothing, you are suddenly so incredibly aware, nothing has changed. Nothing. It's as if you can see the book twenty pages ahead... the candlelight vigils, the weeping mothers, the debates on the screen filled with nothing but the angry buzz of interruption and bullying and interference with each others sides. Bickering. Nagging. Seeping...
Can you already hear them, the raised voices, in your heads? The biting, the chaos and the pre-adolescent hand slapping fights that we have settled on for the term "public debate"? And can you see the news four weeks from now, six weeks from now, with side reports of autopsies, of 'his' Facebook page, of the warning signs, of what his hobbies were and of what he did on the social networks, in school, in life... and you've heard it before and could write it now. Page, after page, after empty page.
Can you see it now before you? Can you taste the dust and the debris of the hopelessness already in your mouth?
And did you, like me, turn to the news stations for answers, for the mirroring of your soul, and pain, for clues to help you process? How did it feel, when they did nothing but slip the pre-warmed syringe into the vein of your arm, lulling you to sleep with words of our president's "tears," and "emotion" and the governor's political two stepping... "we did our best to be prepared but you can never be prepared" speeches? Did the disconnect and the void of neutrality in their eyes dull you as well? Did it lull you back to sleep? Did it convince you, once again, that the Second Amendment will once again, as before, be debated and, once again, will make all of "this" nuisance of a recurrence "null-and-void" and old news?
And I wonder, how many of you turned off the screen like me? Seeing no solace, no anger, no answers and most definitely, no leadership. Did your body fill with the mist-like-grey that comes... feather light, with no weight, and you suddenly know that you are alone? That nothing but burnt soil and bits of black on ashen plains surround you for miles? That the fight within you, that the justice that pounds behind the right of your heart... is not echoed? It's not real? It's not true? And it's not right??? "How can that be?" you wonder. "How can that be?"
I wonder. I wonder if you are like me.
I am mad. I am furious. I am doubtful and I am faithless. I see, with the channels and the flickering and the news and the media... all I see is the emaciated skeleton of what once was. I see the leaders and the fury and the justice and righteousness of those that came before us... I see the fury in their eyes!!!
I see their eyes fixed upon the blood of the children that flows past each of our feet... I see them looking down, while the cameras of today do nothing but look up and zoom in on the tears.. of the wiping of the sadness... of the "emotion." I hear the media of today saying "look! look to your leaders! they are weeping! they are... sad!!!"
But I do not see them. I do not focus on the shed of a tear... I only see the fire. I see the fire of our forefathers, the fire of the children we have lost and I see the fingers of those we have lost before and I see the fighters of our freedom with their arms raised, forward, straight and powerful and full of accusation and knowledge. They are pointing, they are pointing... their arms are raised and they are pointing... to the ancient and the new blood of the innocent that flows upon our feet, that empties from our bowels and that rains upon our hands and that we? We do nothing.
They know that we do nothing. They know that we are numb and content to be numb! That we want that syringe and we want that "emotion" and that all we want are the candlelight vigils and the mourning and the sorrow and perhaps, most likely, that glass of wine that we shall sip and sip and sip and sip until we feel no more. They know that we don't want to fight. We've forgotten how to fight. They see our hands, and they see they are soft and supple and free of worry, war and care.
Oh, yes. We shall make memorials. We shall. But if we look inside, we know that they are the memorials that will stand... that will stand and will surely and knowingly see the blood come again. It most certainly and most definitely will, as we all know, flow again. And we are content with that. We are satisfied with that. We have chosen again and again and again the bickering over the thinking, the drama over the true feeling, the cover-ups and shams that replace our true justice and true knowledge of what is out there.
The rage. Oh! The rage I see burning in the hearts of those that penned our first words!!! The words of our nation have been corrupted to the point of blasphemous infamy. I can see their accusations and I know that they are right. They are so very very right. "We?" "We the people?" I hear them mock. "We the people???" I hear them accuse... "You are not a people anymore."
"You are heathens and you are greedy and you are weak and your hands have no work upon them..." Oh, do I hear them behind me... I hear their skin crackle like the fire that first lit their hearts.
Do you really believe, my people? Do you really believe that our forefathers, the ones who fought and the ones who thought and the ones who showed bravery that the likes of history has rarely seen.... do you really think they would let the blood of children stand? Is that what we really are content to believe???
Do you think that when they wrote their words, that when they wrote their Constitution and their Amendments... do you really think their main goal and purpose was to create some holy scripture that none of us could question or deny? That we were to go on as a people, unthinking and uncompromising and uncaring? Do you really think they wanted us to believe that? Do you really think we could EVER stand before the high court of their judgments and of their minds and find them happy? Content? Proud? of our decisions to stand by some old relic they created for a different time and a different purpose???
As if! As if they thought life was unchanging... as if they thought revolution was a thing to be abhorred... as if they thought that their way was the only way for all time and all creation???
Shame! Shame upon our nation and upon our heads and upon our hearts for believing the most unthinking and most corrupt media to ever ever grace the planet of this earth and the weakest, the weakest of all governments on this planet, that has so quickly and so suddenly fallen from its great heights of only a generation or so ago... Shame! that all now fight for one thing and one thing only! To be "heard." To be "popular." To be "Nice. Right. Kind." That perfect, playing soundbite. Worthless.
We have become a nation of worthless thoughts and of worthless deeds when the blood of our fallen soldiers and the blood of other nations is bantered about like some rodeo rally under the banner of "entertainment," while the blood of our own innocent children flows past our feet and I hear... oh yes, I hear them crying out from that blood... "Why?"
I think you can hear them too.... "Why?"
"Why?" they ask, "are you allowing us to die?"
I wonder if you are like me. I wonder if you are really content with what we have been given? I wonder if you are like me. If you are sick of repetition with no action?
And I really do wonder??? Are you really like me? Are you willing to fight? Are you willing to speak? Are you willing to set axe to bone? To fight for our kids, our lives and fight for real change? Fight for truth and justice and what really happened out there?
Are you like me? Do you really want to look into the mirror? Do you really want to look into the faces of our lost and fallen and do you, like me, feel willing and free and able to turn your eyes away from the sick, flacid and nameless lenses of the cameras and "perspectives" that our medias give voice to... to look down?
To look down at the blood? To hear their names, one by one, as they pass across our feet... and say, "we are sorry. We have failed you. We shall take your names upon our hearts and we shall etch them in our minds and we shall not stand for what others want for us, but we shall stand for you."
Will you join with me, in unison? In voice? In real, true and heady reaction? Asking the question, "when is enough, enough?" Did your heart split in two and cry, "it is finished?" Did you know the end had come? Did you know this must be stopped? Did you feel your foot plant firmly in the ground at the news... and know that the time has now come? The foundation must now shift?
I know that reason does not prevail anymore. I know that reporting no longer exists either. I know that the days are gone when we can turn on our televisions and see an older, wiser and solemn face looking back at us and saying, "This is the line. It shall never again be crossed." When we knew that there would be action to make it so.
Those days are so far gone... they no longer exist. We can't even remember the taste of them. We suckle at the teat of mindless neutral words that do anything but inspire us to fight, feel, heal and most of all... take action.
"We the people."
Are you like me? Will you join me? Will you turn off your screens, tweets and feeds and remove the feeding tube of apathy from your throats. Will you fight back? Will you flood congress? Will you flood your legislature? Will you flood the social networks, your newspapers, your communities... will you vote with your justice and your minds and your hearts... and will you write? Write in your journals and in your families and in your corners and in your harsh realities?
Will you, like me, choose to think freely, think clearly, and admit all of our wrongs and all of our past rights and finally... finally... choose what is right. What is sane. What is true. And what would make our forefathers and our fallen innocents proud.
Will you?
From one soul in agony to my beloved kindred hearts across the globe...
Katherine Eastvold
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