A dream, an idea, a fear.

They came and took us all hostage. I don't know if it was just the one man or several, but what was most alarming was how easy it was to get us to cooperate. We were told there were too many of us. We were cluttering the earth. Whether this was happening just with our class or all over we weren't told. Honestly, we never thought about it, because you stop thinking about other people's problems when yours are immediate and your life is at stake. You switch into a survival mode that puts everything on a new perspective. It was similar to the Japanese book where a class of people was placed on an island and told they all had to kill each other if anyone was to survive in order to harden the Japanese youth and get them to respect authority. But this wasn't about authority. I don't know what it was about, really. I became a piece of the puzzle. I didn't have all the answers. I just wanted to survive. They had our class to weird drills to see who would live or die. They wanted to make it seem like it was chance who lived and who died, and they killed us in groups. The losers of the games were killed, and people who opposed the rules were killed, so we did our best to keep quiet and win. They separated us in groups, and when I did things like do-ci-do in a train of our schoolmates for 10 minutes, with fire in the corners and chains around our legs, I tried not to make eye contact with anyone. For some reason, the girls that I liked in school came to me as a source of support when everything was dark and nobody was listening. I was torn between my intense feelings for them, my heart twisted for them, and a coldness that I wanted to keep from everyone to keep from getting hurt when they were killed. I wasn't responsible for everyone around me dying, and very likely, I would die as well if I got caught doing something they didn't like, like make friends in the dark. They put us on a ship in the middle of the ocean, and that meant we were trapped. Men had guns and ran us like circus animals. One night, we were woken up to gun shots and lay awake for a long time wondering what it was. The next morning we were told that a couple of our classmates, losers by my reckoning, had tried to attack the men in power and had been shot. Honestly, I didn't take them for people that had any sort of initiative to do that. Maybe the men just came in and shot people at night sometimes if they didn't like them. Each day, a group of people who had lost the "game" of the day was killed. Perhaps 5-10 people a day, maybe more. After several days of this, I got to wondering: why weren't we rising up against them? Why were we complying? The danger was very real, but for some reason we figured we could make it through to the next day, and that was what was most important. The most disturbing thing for me was that I got it in my head that we were complying because they weren't killing people we cared about. I was worried about my friends dying, but they were still alive. It was as though the killers were making their point: there were too many of us. We were extras. A lot of us. We wouldn't be missed. Our class could do without the chaff. I couldn't name the names of anyone who was killed. Just one day they were with us, and the next day there were less people doing the games. Their absence was barely tangible. It was a dark feeling, a shadow. With the turmoil, emotional, the survival instinct shot into us, we couldn't even put a name to anyone who was killed. That's why we complied, because deep down we hadn't been hurt yet. All the games were a facade. The results didn't matter. Although it was made to seem random who was selected, it must have been bullshit. The men in charge knew who was going to die before hand, and only put us through those games for some sort of psychological effect on us. I don't think they intended to kill all of us. Most of us felt we were in danger but that if we kept our heads down we could survive this and go on to live our lives.

One Wrong Move

The one thing that distinguishes me from a murderer is that I have not committed any murders yet. One decision. One movement of the finger. A moment of madness. It may even be less than that. Surely, there are people in prison at this very moment who have been convicted of murders they did not commit. To society, they are murderers as well. In thought, a criminal and myself have no other distinctions. I'm sure I process similarly to many other men and women convicted of crimes. One day, they were citizens, the same as you and I. They had families, friends, Christmas celebrations and bills to pay. Then, one thing led to the next. A car was stolen, a bitter woman pressed charges after a drunken night, a policeman happened to catch you in the wrong place at the wrong time with drugs in the car. Now, jail. Employers look down on you. Family members don't talk about you in the same light. Are we not the same people we were the day before?

Perhaps I, two, ten or twenty years down the line, will become enraged at someone. Maybe they stole from me, hit my girl, or assaulted me. I will lose my restraint and furiously hit them with a bat. I've thought about how I would most likely murder someone, and it would almost certainly come in a moment of emotional fury with a blunt, nearby object. I have lived moments where I lost my temper. The rest of my life would be determined by the courts, my freedoms forfeit despite an entire life of being a good friend, worker, brother, uncle, son, husband. Forfeit because of one act. One moment.

I hate the laws. I hate the coldness of it all. I hate the interference from parties which care nothing for your emotional well-being and everything about politics and getting the job settled. Once, there was a time when men settled things between men. If a man raped or assaulted your daughter, he would be tracked down and killed, or at least had his legs broken, and that was that. Now, we are expected to sit quietly in our homes while oblivious officers instruct the criminal of his right to a lawyer and "fair" trial, where random people who have never met either party will decide what is "fair." We are powerless. The men who believe in an eye for an eye are punished for taking care of it themselves rather than sitting idly by. Why is it wrong to react according to your emotions when someone has wronged you or someone you love? Why is it that beating up a lying, thieving jerk is a crime at all, let alone one that could result in fifteen years in prison? Why do we have to prove it to a judge when we already know what is true from what we've seen from our own eyes? When we've lived the violations, why must we take it and explain it carefully and calmly, hoping that they will be punished as we see fit? It is not settling, to the victim, to have it taken care of by the police. Jail is rarely the right answer. Our punishments are uncreative and gentle when there are thousands of ways to hurt people, physically, mentally and emotionally. Why must I sit and deal with the pussification of the American justice system rather than cut out the meddling middle man and handle my own issues? Why aren't we allowed to take care of ourselves? Because it means they would lose power. They would lose money and influence. Because men in suits are afraid that deregulation means chaos. How does it feel to be a bear in a zoo? A bit like this, I would imagine. "Sure, they could roam free on their own, but what if they...! No!" say the zookeepers. "It's best to watch them from afar. Put them in a cage. We will feed them, and watch over them. That is what's best." But, it's not. It kills the beast within. It's murder.

Hi, I'm here to cause trouble

My mom and Karen just stopped by the house. I told her she wasn't welcome here and that my dad would call 911 if he ever sees her there, to which she said, "Oh, that's not a big deal." I don't hate her like I used to--distance calms feelings--but showing up here is disrespectful to my dad's and my wishes. Use a phone or the postal service, if you have something to deliver, (and she always sneakily calls it "something"--she never admits it's divorce papers). She just came to make him angry, anxious and stir up trouble, hopefully inciting him to physically push her off his property, then Karen would be the witness so they could use it against him in court and get more money out of him. After all the childish things she's put him through, just the thought of her gets my dad furious. When I told her she wasn't welcome and to drop off the paperwork at my sister's, she lingered on the porch steps carrying no papers in hand, saying useless chit-chat about internet technology and Karen's relationship. Normally, I'm a more forceful person, and if Karen wasn't there, I'd have been that way with my mother. I would have said, "You're not welcome here. Dad doesn't want you here. I don't want you here. It's disrespectful to everyone that you think you can just show up here, with that smile on your face, trying to ruin his night. Find something better to do with your time, because you can drop it off at Nicky's, where you know he visits several times a week, or mail it, and the fact that you know when he sees you here there will be police cars and you still linger is intolerable. Get back in your car, and don't come back." Then, I'd point at her car and hold my arm there, my jaw set. Something tells me she'll be back here, and the police cars will come, and the neighbors will peer out their windows at the flashing lights while yelling commences. Why can't my parents carry-out their divorce like normal people? Five years of this bullshit is a long time.