I

AN OPEN LETTER

Dear fellow countrymen,

Stillness is death. No matter how much you shout, scream, scatter, fight, hide or fly, you’ll end in this stillness if you do not find your voice. That no one can give you. It is an arrival. Hope we find each other in common land.

Much love,

K

 II

He narrates his story. She, hers:

“Just what do you mean by ‘the people of this land are resilient?’ Do I understand by this that they accept whatever is thrown at them, never questioning?”

I was furious with her casual approach. We’re talking about a revolution here that’s been going on for the last 20 years and still, the apathy, the passivity, the complacence. This is not resilience. Turning a blind eye to that which does not affect you directly resolves nothing.

“But so much has changed. It’s slow. It’s happening,” she said. True. Not the whole truth. The degree of change, has that been questioned? Mindset and culture, has that been taken into consideration?

Prolonged passivity makes leeches of us all!

III

 Piece by piece the world around him collapses, he knows this too well. But inertia and inaction have become habit. Each morning he wakes with a fight that doesn’t last an hour into the day. First the knees weaken, the heart sinks, the body relents and then the brain dies. No sooner does this happen than he subsides into the all too familiar trance of doing nothing. Sometimes the hands of a clock move faster than the limbs and days turn to weeks that turn to…self-loathing. He’s now resigned to the smallness of his room and yet those close have faith, they wait… hoping change will come, but he’s died too many deaths.

There is darkness in broad daylight that’s found rest under the skin of everyday life. Little does she feel this horror! Hers is an unshakeable faith – good shall prevail. And so she waits…like so many more. Their voices fade as the hot air rises. Ignorance accomplishes nothing. And here faith provides no relief, rather supplements the horror. Soon, very soon, she’ll become a ghost.

They wait… and wait… and wait…
This city will soon become a valley of ghosts.

 IV

In God’s country He fails to be recognized because He is everywhere?
If God exists it would be necessary to destroy Him. Start all over if we had to.

We have a new national anthem. Does it mean something? Do WE have a national anthem?

 V

Let all that is old burn
On that busy street, the taste of revolution poisons
The insides out, pricked by new hope.
An old gift in new cloth.
Let it rise from the ashes, if it rises not from the heart.
The road lies ahead. Soon, it will be far behind.
What make you of your time?
Of your hands? Of your mind?
Let it burn then, till nothing remains.
Shall nothing remain?

WE MUST NOT WAIT.