Through the Darkest of Nights: Testament VIII

Every few days over the next several months I will be posting installments of a novel about life, death, war and politics in America since 9/11.  Through the Darkest of Nights is a story of hope, reflection, determination, and redemption.  It is a testament to the progressive values we all believe in, have always defended, and always will defend no matter how long this darkness lasts.          

All installments are available for reading here on my page, and also here on Docudharma’s Fiction Page, where refuge from politicians, blogging overload, and one BushCo outrage after another can always be found.

   

    When the rain stopped, Shannon and I walked out onto the National Mall into air washed clean of the stench of deceit and corruption that pervades this city.  The stench factories at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue will foul the air again within minutes, but for now the air is breathable.  Shannon had been silent inside the Lincoln Memorial, she’d only spoken once.  We were looking out at the Capitol, barely visible in the mist at the far end of the Mall, and her words expressed exactly what I’d been thinking.

    “It’s even farther away than it looks, Jericho.  It’s so far away it’s not even in this world anymore.”

    As we walked along the pathway beside the Reflecting Pool, I longed to ask Shannon to tell me about herself, to explain who she was, to tell me why she had come into my life.  I keep remembering her words that night in New York . . .

    I want to believe she’s who I think she is, but it doesn’t seem possible.  She may share all of her secrets with me someday, but until then, just being with her restores my hope that this nightmare will end, and that I will live to see it.  So I walked silently beside her, until she began to speak of what was to come.

    “I know what’s in your heart, Jericho, I know it is broken.  But many hearts are broken.”

    “I know they are . . . I wish I could heal them, Shannon, I wish I could heal them all.”

    “But you feel alienated.”

    “I feel like . . . like it’s useless to care anymore.  No matter how hard I try, nothing is ever going to change.  Maybe my alienation is my fault.  Maybe it isn’t.  I’ve never spoken to anyone but Sarah about it until now.  What would people say in response?  Some would say I’m antisocial.  Some would say I must think I’m better than everyone else.  Some would tell me to quit feeling sorry for myself and get a life.”

    “Those who crawl into bed with the whore of complicity are the ones who need to get a life, Jericho.  They are obsessed with money and possessions, they fill their homes with the empty prizes of this empty society of empty people with empty eyes and empty dreams.  They harbor resentment if others have more empty prizes than they do.  They get married for the shallowest of reasons, then wonder why their marriages crumble into dust.  They compete for lovers, for position, for power, for status.  They measure the meaning of their lives by all of the wrong standards-the size of their dwelling, the extent of their wealth, the scope of their influence, the desirability of their bodies.”

     Shannon looked into my eyes.  “You are not alienated, Jericho.  They are.  They are alienated from what really matters.  They deceive themselves into thinking they will find happiness, but they will not find it, they will never find it, they do not even know what happiness is.  They think they will finally be happy if they can get one more promotion, or find one more good investment, or close one more deal so they can be Sales Drone of the Year and be the envy of all the other sales drones.   But happiness does not lie ahead of them, it does not lie ahead of any of them.  Endless shame lies ahead of them, endless carnage lies ahead of them, endless war lies ahead of them.”  

    “I don’t understand.  If endless war awaits us, seeking peace seems useless.”    

    “There are many forms of war, Jericho, and there are many forms of peace.  The most terrible manifestation of war is the war that never ends within every human soul, between love and hate, between compassion and vengeance, between truth and deceit, for the wars of this world wreak their destruction when hate and vengeance and deceit are winning that war within each of us.  That war never ends.  Hate and vengeance and deceit are winning that war in more human souls than ever before, and endless war among nations will be the consequence. But that war within each of us has not yet been lost.”

    We reached the end of the Reflecting Pool, and Shannon glared at the White House for a moment before turning away in disgust.   “The exploiters have maintained their power by inciting hate and vengeance, by engaging in deceit, and by inflicting emotional and psychological torment on those who resist them.  They will expand their power by escalating that incitement and intensifying that torment.  It will be unrelenting, it will go on for years.  The innocent and the powerless will be subjected to one outrage after another, but there will be no deliverance from the evil of these vipers.  The institutions of democracy will be purged of believers in democracy, and betrayers of democracy will take their place.”

    “And no one will challenge them?”  

    “No one in power will challenge them, so the torment will go on.  Torment can be endured, Jericho, but everyone has a breaking point.  The exploiters know that.  They are determined to destroy all resistance to them, to break our will to speak out against them, to torment every seeker of peace with their brutal agenda, and its brutal impact, and the brutal reality that no one will hold them accountable for the treason and war crimes they will commit.”

    “There must be a way to make people listen, to stop this.”  

    “Seekers of peace must listen to each other first, Jericho.  We must heal ourselves.  Only then can we heal those who are in even more need of healing than we are.  The afflicted cannot heal the afflicted.  Believe me, I have learned that lesson.”

    “Will you tell me about it?”

    “When you are ready, I will tell you about it, I will tell you about everything.  But I will not burden you with that now, you are burdened enough as it is.  Your heart is already broken, the hearts of millions are already broken, but your hearts can be healed.   By each other.”

    “By reaching out to one another.”

    “Yes.  By speaking to one another, heart to heart, mind to mind, soul to soul, in words of healing, in words of compassion and encouragement and empowerment.  You all feel isolated, you are isolated, but physical distance from one another no longer matters.  The broken hearted in Michigan and Illinois and Missouri will reach out to one another, the broken hearted in every state, in every city and town across this wasteland ruled by highly paid heart-breakers will seek union and healing and empowerment through one another, and they will find what they seek.  They will tell each other their stories, and in the telling, healing will come, and when healing comes, communion will come, and when communion comes, empowerment will come, and when empowerment comes, the resistance will begin.”  

    “The Internet.  We’ll use the Internet.”

    “Of course.  The resistance I speak of is already emerging.  It will be a resistance unlike any before, it will be a resistance born and forged by seekers of peace who may never meet, but whose hearts beat as one.  It will begin among the broken-hearted who think they are alone, it will begin among those who think it hurts too much to care anymore, but who care anyway.  It will begin when the broken-hearted reach out to one another, and realize they can heal one another. So they will, and a ripple of healing will spread outward in concentric rings of compassion, across this country and then across this world.”  

    We stood at the base of the Washington Monument and looked back at the Lincoln Memorial.  “Think of that Memorial when your faith in yourself is tested, Jericho.  Think of Abraham Lincoln, and remember that one human being can make a difference, that one human being can free millions of other human beings from bondage.   If enough Americans remember that, they can free themselves from bondage, and then free all of humanity from bondage.”  

    Ahead of us the Capitol stood atop its hill.  Shannon would not even look at it, she looked at me instead, and there was fire in her eyes.  “America once had leaders who actually cared about the truth, Jericho.  They sought it and spoke it, but those days are gone.   American journalists cared about the facts, they sought them and reported them, but those days are gone.  America was respected in the world.   That respect was sought and earned, but those days are gone.  This nation is staggering into the twilight of its existence.  Americans are afraid of losing their freedom, but they are even more afraid of defending it.”  

    Shannon unclasped her necklace and gave it to me.  “Someday, I will tell you who has worn this pendant in ages past, Jericho.  Until then, wear it next to your heart.  Wear it for America’s children, whose parents are too afraid to defend them.  Wear it for her poor, for her homeless, for everyone in this country yearning to be free.  Wear it for the Founding Fathers of this fallen land, who would weep in shame if they were alive today and had to look upon what this nation has become.  Wear it for every young American about to be sent off to die by deceivers, wear it for the million human beings in Iraq who will perish because criminals covet the oil lying beneath the sands of the Cradle of Civilization.

    Wear it next to your heart, Jericho, and know that when your breaking point comes, I will come to you.  Until that night, when all will seem lost, wear it for the men, women, and children who are already lost, wear it for those who died with Sarah on that terrible morning, whose deaths have been exploited, so the patriotism of America can be exploited, so the sacrifice of her soldiers can be exploited, so the oil wealth of the Middle East can be exploited, so the anger of the Muslim world can be exploited, so other mornings of mass death will be triggered, so the cycle can be repeated, so the profits can be reaped.”

   I looked down at the pendant in my hand, a broken heart linked to a necklace of silver that glistened in the sunlight like a promise of redemption.  

   “Believe in peace, Jericho.  Believe in healing.  Healing brings peace and peace brings healing.”

   Shannon embraced me.  “You must go your way now, and I must go mine.  But when all seems lost, I will come to you as I have promised.”