Both Sides Now...
.by Phillip Edward Alexander on Saturday, February 19, 2011 at 12:05am.
There's an article in the paper this week about a mother describing her dead son, her picture showing an acceptance of death only poverty could understand as she sits among her remaining children and grand children in the squalor of her existence.
She speaks to no one in particular, her tone resigned, her expression empty; how her son was never a bandit, was always a good boy and she seems genuinely at a loss as to explain how this could have happened. One can almost feel the pain that each bit of bad news brings, her son a bandit too much to bear by itself, her bandit son dead at the scene of the crime another horror all on its own and begging for motherly understanding and a distraught apology for his behavior even as her heart grieves the loss of her boy child.
The sadness of that situation is one side of a tragic coin, counterbalanced by the news of an intrusion by two thugs armed with cutlasses sharing chop after chop to the awake and the sleeping alike, creating a river of blood in their wake in search of loot.
Having taken what little their victims had to offer and making their way to wherever escape was supposed to lead, they find themselves confronted by family members and friends with vengeance on their minds, blood hot from the gore at the scene of the crime delivering swift judgement, one dead, one very badly wounded.
To the police this is a crime on top of a crime and the vigilante response is rewarded with three days at the State's most uncomfortable pleasure while those with the authority to make more of the matter decide if it was really worth it to punish a man others were already calling hero; so tired of the carnage, the assault, the blood and the death were they that talk making more talk than necessary, after all, one dead and one very badly wounded.
Mammy come bury your dead son, no good words can be said at this point, his last hours in this world were spent distressing others with pain and violence.
Mammy look to your other children now, see who could be saved because this was no way to go after all that work to grow; if you didn't know then you didn't know, but now you know, so you have to check the rest, because young children shouldn't be wasted like this, not in a heap on the side of the road or covered in other people blood.
The people talking because people will talk, never mind that; they need to find a way to understand. Some say that the devil walking around in broad daylight now, looking for hands to put mischief in, to send trouble for people, and he find four hands willing to take it and deliver it.
Others saying that madness find its way there for no good reason, and it leave same way it come.
What a sad situation, to look at this story from both sides; pain and grief and heartache right around.
No good words to say about nobody today, people crying on both sides now...
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