What's Going On?

A woman wept on the TV screen. Lamented the fate of her husband, convicted as a terrorist, awaiting death on the hand of the righteous law enforcer. “He’s innocent,” she wailed between her sobs. “He’s my husband.” The picture changed, a man in expensive suit with a boring tie. “It’s decided,” he declared, “Justice must be served.” The anchor woman pop in with a plastic smile, announcing another message of grave importance. Floods, catastrophes, war, human idiocy. They call it news, these tragedies. They believe we need to know.

They told us about this war in distant lands, they move us to do something about it. They call us to act, to go beyond the great sea and fight this war of strangers. Solidarity, brotherhood, justice: their words of wisdom. They forgot one more, though: violence. It’s the core of their actions. Violence; they breathe with it, live with it, can do nothing without it. They can’t help it, this cluster of manhood we call ‘human race’. Violence, it’s their language of ‘truth’.

It’s funny, really, the way they define their values. They’re enraged by the news of strangers died in their faraway lands. They rush out to help, to defend those strangers with whom they never shared earth and waters and blood. Promising God’s heaven to anyone naïve enough to listen (what right do they have, promising something that’s not even theirs to offer?). But when they heard of their own sisters wronged so far away from home, the only word of justice they cried out is silence.

And I thought of a bitter debate I had some time ago, when the same righteous people fought to ban abortion, when they forcefully condemned abortion and calling it evil, calling it murder. Where are they now, as the death penalty hover around demanding it’s toll? Why wouldn’t they call it murder? Why wouldn’t they call it evil?

They believe they’re righteous, these people of values. They blinded their eyes to the double standard upon which they build their values—be it as glaringly obvious as it is. They care not about our own sisters who work as TKW being wronged. They care not of the murders performed by our own so-called law. They care not about the violence of neglect continually done by our own government. They care for nothing but their own values.. they cannot feel nor see the hollow emptiness within those values.

So here I am, weeping for their blindness, weeping for their vast majority, weeping for my helplessness to make a difference.

[Friday, 11 August 2006]

pilgrim

she came to me one night, when the moon went dark and the sky pitch black. she wore the cloak of solitude, her face covered by the veil of silence. the evening was full of the singing of darkling-beetles, but all went hushed as she drew nearer. she whispered so softly, but her voice filled the night without mercy: “fear not the dark, for it is the light that burns. in darkness, we are beautiful. in darkness, nothing is impossible. in darkness, we are free.”

i struggled to speak, but my voice deserted me. there we stood, she and i. the pregnant silence filled the space between our bodies. i was frightened, yet i could not move. just being in her presence has petrified me. i saw nothing else but her, heard no other voice but hers, felt no other being but her. in the deepening darkness i could feel her smiling, she took my hand so tenderly. again she whispered, “fear not…”

“why fear loneliness, little darkling? loneliness is where we came at first. why fear death? death is our final home. why fear struggle? struggle is the air we breathe. why fear silence? silence is the illuminating melody of life…” she spoke again in her gentle voice. there was something strange in her voice, it was so soft yet so clear. i could hear nothing else each time she spoke to me; as if her voice was the only sound i ever heard.

she came closer, held my face in her hands. i could feel her eyes pierced me through. i know she was searching for scathing truth. after a moment she took my hand and we walked deeper into the dark. “there is nothing to fear but the fear itself, little darkling,” she whispered again as she squeezed my hand gently in her cool-comforting grasp. “i know you’ve been afraid of solitude,” she turned and caressed my face, “do not afraid of solitude.in solitudine solatium… in your solitude you shall find your solace.”

“i am in love,” i whispered almost inaudibly, “but i was forced to hide in darkness. i am frightened. if love should be so dark, i’d rather know it not. i wish i could stop loving.”

she laughed, not unkindly. she held my body closely, soothed my wounded soul. “who could understand the nature of love? love does whatever love wants; and no one shall know when it shall come, when it shall leave. no one shall know where love came from. ah, love… it is for our kindred, little darkling, love comes out of the blue… straight into the black.”

“but i feel so alone!” i wanted to scream, my tears streamed down.

“alone is how we stand, yet alone we never are,” she dried my tears with her fingers, “separation is the greatest illusion.”

“who are you?” i plead in my stunned confusion.

“i am who i am. i am who you are. we were dispersed yet we are one. i am the pilgrim of the night, black-clad under the evening stars; and so are you.”

and her body disolved into the thickening night-air; yet i feel her presence within.
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17 september 2007 ; 09.50