Pure Panic

[fdelano]

Pure Panic

At the sink, a young mother

stands, washing breakfast dishes

and listening to TV morning news.

An alert of shootings at her

daughter's kindergarten!

Her heart freezes, her mind

shuts down. She holds the sink

to keep from falling.

Run! She grabs keys, not even

thinking of changing from her

robe. To her SUV, tires squeal

in the morning quiet.

At the school, dozens of police

cars and crowds of people all

moving, seemingly incoherent.

Uniformed men leading

and surrounding dozens of

children, guiding them

to a safe area and comforters.

The mother grabs the arm

of a policeman in military garb,

swinging him around to face

her questioning eyes.

He shakes his head, “We don't

know anything yet, I have to go.

Go to that roped-off area. That's

where we are bringing the kids.”

Numbly, she walks toward

the ropes, her eyes searching

frantically for her daughter.

[Benjamin]

It's difficult to know how to respond to these war-like situations where the enemy comes from within our own society -- rather than overtly on some foreign battlefield.

[tonyv]

Unpreventable violence and the preventable, ongoing militarization of state and local police -- two distinct and unrelated tragedies.

 

... The mother grabs the arm

of a policeman in military garb,

swinging him around to face

her questioning eyes.

He shakes his head, “We don't

know anything yet, I have to go.

Go to that roped-off area. That's

where we are bringing the kids” ...

These days, I wouldn't be surprised if he threw her to the ground for "assaulting" him, put his jackboot on her neck, and tasered her for good measure.

 

Tony