A shattering quiet

The look could only be described as a smirk. That’s what it was, that’s what struck me to the core like a cold stabbing, sliver thin bolt of ice. The photo in the paper showed the brothers standing at the Boston Marathon. Near a place that would, in a matter of minutes, resemble more a ravaged war zone than a celebratory gathering of runners from around the world realizing their life-long, or annual, dreams.
Men, women, children, whose body parts would soon be torn asunder, some never to recover, all enjoying Patriot Day. Except for those two brothers, one looking down the street, eyes hidden behind shades; the other, the younger, just … smirking.
He knew what havoc was about to be unleashed upon the unsuspecting. He knew. He hoped. I read his name. I could look it up now to include here, but I won’t. He has received too much notoriety as it is and I don’t want to dignify any of that twisted fame by writing it, giving it substance. To me he lost the right to have a name.
He and his brother are specters, shadow figures, cowards of incredible scale. They accomplished what they planned. We felt the blow 3,000 miles away.
And there was no escape.
Shards of information screaming at us 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year as the world, once so vast rational people thought it flat as a pancake, shrinks to the size of the head of a pin.
So quickly can information, and disinformation, be shared, there exists precious little time to process anything fully before we move on to the next disaster, challenge, encounter.
Is it the sheer wall of unrelenting chatter that overwhelms or it our inability to digest, to swallow, to craft some sort of gestalt out of madness that makes us weary, anxious and edgy?
Have we eschewed processing and skipped straight to crafting our blame attacks? Surely we can find someone — a federal clerk, an FBI agent, a government suit, a president — at whom we can point our bloodstained finger and say, ‘this is all because of you!’
We need that, don’t we? Someone who could have prevented all this, because the alternative is …
The alternative is too painful to think about. As it implies that, no, this could not have been prevented. For, when reason abandon’s one’s thought process anything is possible.
Anything.
And there is no escape. Even with the TV off, the newspapers lying unread, the magazines ignored. Even then, there are tweets, posts, texts, whispers and allegations. We can’t turn it off. We can’t run away because there is nowhere to run.
We have wrapped ourselves in electronic, glowing ‘connections’ that sometimes prevent us from lifting our heads and looking around. We find it challenging to spend time in blessed silence, alone with our thoughts that need time to grow, to evolve, to coalesce into a sensible whole. A whole that is born from within, not co-opted from screaming TV heads that serve no purpose other than to pander and incite, cruelly simultaneously.
Considered examination? Who has time for that? We want, we need, we deserve instant answers, instant justice, instant resolutions to life’s most complex challenges.
Let us rush to judgment. Whether it’s right or wrong doesn’t matter. If we’re wrong, no one will remember. If we’re right. Well then, hell we’re right!
Yet this rush to explain the inexplicable can leave ethics, morals and perspective torn asunder as well.
Random acts of violence are scarier than planned attacks. And I need a quiet space to reconcile that in my heart and soul. To make some sort of peace with the fact that two bastards stole lives, limbs and precious breath from people who did nothing more than run. Run free through the streets of a cradle of liberty.
I also want a reprise from white noise to fully honor the courage and compassion of the people of Boston, those folks who rushed to aid regardless of personal risk. People from down the block and around the world who, for that day at least, were Americans tried and true. For out of tragedy, we see — we saw — real heroes. And they were not spouting off on TV or the Internet. They were in the streets taking care of their friends, their brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers; their competitors and acquaintances, their strangers in a newly strange land.
In our land of the free, it truly was the home of the brave.
Steven welcomes your comments. You can reach him at st***************@gm***.com.