This is a highly experimental and perhaps controversial piece I have written, that I wanted to share with you. I was testing out different narrative voices and poetic forms, trying to push the envelope of the subject matter. It's definitely a memorial piece, but written from a very unusual perspective. I sought to address a number of questions. Was there a human side to an individual many consider a monster, a mass murderer, and a fanatic? What must have been going through his mind? Would he feel any regret for his horrific deeds? Did he finally find more peace in death than he did in life?
I sure hope so.
Laden with Regret
The echoes of gunfire dampen and fade beyond murky depths. War is a distant memory, the call to arms a voice I no longer recognize. I had run away from it all, fled to a life of comfort and meager opulence from where I could survey the struggles of others.
No, they were my brothers. Men I hailed as brave. Devoted men who would have jumped on a live grenade to save their comrades, sacrificing their bodies to the fires of martyrdom. Learned men who gave up everything, left behind their families, for the cause. For me.
I am never alone it seems. There are thousands of them, voices of the slain who whisper in my ears in strange tongues, professing even stranger beliefs. Incoherent emotions among the confusion of their final moments filter out like colors through a prism. Moans of despair, screams of fear, cries of agony. Terror even. Raw emotions that emanate from somewhere within the flesh and blood. Feelings like mine. I too know what it means to be human.
Not anymore, not in this place. I cannot answer them, even had I the right words. My breath fails, my lungs burdened by an ocean of tears shed by mothers, fathers, siblings of loved ones lost. I have a family I had not laid eyes upon in years. What mother would spare a tear for me?
I cannot hear my heartbeat. My limbs are leaden. I struggle against my bonds, these sodden strands that surround me. Doubtless they are bandages hiding the hideous scars I accumulated over the years, yet only now notice. These hands, what have they wrought upon the world? I do not know, or cannot admit.
My fingers trace paths along my face. They run into ragged edges of a bullet wound, where wet scraps of linen held back the unrevealed truth. Blood spills in torrents, coating the palms of my hands. I sense somehow that they always carried this same crimson stain.
Then it happens. Bits of brain and bone begin their descent, tumbling out like bodies from a burning skyscraper. If only to catch them, plug the gaps, stop this madness so that things could be as they were. I know, however, there is no going back.
These fragments of spilled flesh slip through my fingers. There is no catching them as they drift away. I can't save what is lost. With these hands I tear out my right eye to gaze upon my fate, and at last see myself as the world saw me.
And knowing this, I can only wail into the abyss.
THE END
I sure hope so.
Laden with Regret
The echoes of gunfire dampen and fade beyond murky depths. War is a distant memory, the call to arms a voice I no longer recognize. I had run away from it all, fled to a life of comfort and meager opulence from where I could survey the struggles of others.
No, they were my brothers. Men I hailed as brave. Devoted men who would have jumped on a live grenade to save their comrades, sacrificing their bodies to the fires of martyrdom. Learned men who gave up everything, left behind their families, for the cause. For me.
I am never alone it seems. There are thousands of them, voices of the slain who whisper in my ears in strange tongues, professing even stranger beliefs. Incoherent emotions among the confusion of their final moments filter out like colors through a prism. Moans of despair, screams of fear, cries of agony. Terror even. Raw emotions that emanate from somewhere within the flesh and blood. Feelings like mine. I too know what it means to be human.
Not anymore, not in this place. I cannot answer them, even had I the right words. My breath fails, my lungs burdened by an ocean of tears shed by mothers, fathers, siblings of loved ones lost. I have a family I had not laid eyes upon in years. What mother would spare a tear for me?
I cannot hear my heartbeat. My limbs are leaden. I struggle against my bonds, these sodden strands that surround me. Doubtless they are bandages hiding the hideous scars I accumulated over the years, yet only now notice. These hands, what have they wrought upon the world? I do not know, or cannot admit.
My fingers trace paths along my face. They run into ragged edges of a bullet wound, where wet scraps of linen held back the unrevealed truth. Blood spills in torrents, coating the palms of my hands. I sense somehow that they always carried this same crimson stain.
Then it happens. Bits of brain and bone begin their descent, tumbling out like bodies from a burning skyscraper. If only to catch them, plug the gaps, stop this madness so that things could be as they were. I know, however, there is no going back.
These fragments of spilled flesh slip through my fingers. There is no catching them as they drift away. I can't save what is lost. With these hands I tear out my right eye to gaze upon my fate, and at last see myself as the world saw me.
And knowing this, I can only wail into the abyss.
THE END
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