Living by the Sword

Note: In response to the recent slayings In New Town, Connecticut and the subsequent announcement by the National rifle Association, I am posting this story, written in 1997 even before the Columbine massacre. If the NRA has its way, school guards will be armed in order to defend students against violence. Children, living in fear and exposed to violence as the solution to fear, will certainly not grow up to be balanced citizens and healthy adults. Children in war-torn countries have a portion of their psyche, their hearts torn out and trampled upon. We cannot, we must not, teach them, by word or example, that the way to peace and safety is through an escalation of violence or even threat of violence. We who lived through the Cold War should be the strongest proponents of peace through giving and loving rather than through grasping and ever-increasing levels of threat of violence and retaliation. 12-22-12 Seconds ticked. Time elongated, prolonged, stretched until the pause between each jump of the red second hand seemed an infinity. It paused at 25, then, eventually, ticked to 26, 27, 28. They watched, all of them. Tension filled the room, a tension nearly audible in its intensity. 33, 34, 35. The hour and minute hands so closely aligned at the vertical that human eye could not distinguish one from the other. 46…47…48… He stood closest to the clock, watching it with the concentration of one who has everything to gain and everything to lose. Convergence. Convergence of the hands of the clock, convergence of the seconds, minutes, hours and days of his life. All concentrated at this moment of time, this sliver of his life, this watershed. Nothing could stop the flow of events, now. Success or failure, indeed, life or death hinged on the few seconds remaining. 4…3….1… As if conducted by an unseen hand, all eyes turned to the window overlooking the city. A small rustle of adjusting position fluttered through the assembly, then, in the final half tick before the convergence of all three hands, silence. An almost-palpable shock ran through the assembly, at the infinitesimal jumped to one second past noon. Disappointment surged. Then, a puff of smoke, far across the cityscape, then a sudden burst toward the sky, resolving into a column a hundred feet high. Silent, at this distance and time, yet a cry of triumph shook the room, followed, a second later, by the dull reverberation that rattled the windows and sent confirming shock waves through the group. Their shout died. A solemn awareness settled. It had begun. He was dead. His death signaled a new life, a new pulse through the arteries of their country. His death cleared the way, opened the path for new leadership, changes, liberation. Liberty, at last. Freedom, at last. Time flowed, gaining, now, the speed of a swift stream. Quiet knots of discussion filled the room. Handshakes, backslaps, tears. Their time, now, they, the people, finally, in control. And he, in the center, their new leader. All eyes turned to him, expectant, waiting. Waiting for the first solemn victorious words from this planner, this architect this new messiah of their freedom. Later, much later, after the hubbub, the delirious celebration, the words of victory, the words of war, he was alone. Jubilation and fear, now, filled him. And a nagging worry. A worry kept in the background, suppressed in the excitement, the released tension of the day. Where was she? She hadn't been in the waiting group or the celebrative throng. He knocked on her door, once more, thinking she might have slipped in quietly, hiding her entrance from him at this late hour. Where could she be? This one gem of his personal life, this one survivor of his dead wife, this one seed of his own future. The streets grew silent, even the crowds of drunken revelers clearing the streets at last, tired of their own joyous rejoicing. Dew dripped from condensing surfaces, the occasional bark of a dog's disturbed dream, the passing of a distant car on some night errand the only sounds to break the night still. Outside the dark sky, speckled with the spangles of bright stars began to pale in the predawn preparation for a new day. A car's headlights turned into the street, its red taillight visible for a brief second as its perspective changed. He watched it slow then stop in front of his door. Police. How could they know? Was he still alive, in spite of the radio announcements? Could someone else have filled the power-vacuum so soon? Could they have traced him so swiftly? But, wouldn't they have sent many? Would they entrust such an important errand as his arrest to a single officer? He watched the polished boots, the hated symbol of the oppressor emerge first, followed by the head, above the door frame, uncovered by the second symbol. Then a tall thin body emerged, glancing at the door, confirming an address. He reached into the interior, retrieved the hat, put it on his head, adjusting it to just that angle that conveyed power and authority. Closing the door with quiet force, he turned to the house and rang the bell. Hurrying down the stairs, dread and fear filling him, he opened the door to face the officer. They stared into each other's eyes for a moment. He could not see threat there, could not see reason for flight or fight. A certain sadness, perhaps, but not reason for alarm. "You heard, sir, of the bomb, today, no doubt?" his words seemed an anachronism, an irony. "Yes." Cautious. "Well, sir," his voice faltered, seemed to break. He shuffled his feet, sliding his eyes from direct contact. "Well, sir," he repeated, clearing his throat. "I'm afraid." He did not finish his sentence, but thrust a purse into the gulf between them. It was battered, torn, scorched. “I'm afraid, sir, that someone from this house…." He did not hear the rest, did not want to hear the rest, could not hear the rest. His mind reeled in an agony of denial, of anger, of bitter recriminations. He opened the purse and dumped its contents to the concrete. But there, in the midst of the trappings of a young woman's life, the bracelet he had given her, the bracelet she wore as a symbol of her loyalty to him, her tie to him, her love for him. 1997