Monday, August 29, 2005

Four Shots One Evening

POP POP POP
I rose to peer out of the window.
POP

One man was dead, another man fled, and the witnesses were left with the thoughts swirling in each head.

It has taken days, but I now realize that there was much more in these two men's lives than what I saw, what I heard, what I felt. These men are more than their roles as victim and murderer. What led up to the murder? Not simply between these two men, but in their lives as a whole. We must not look for excuses or even reasons, murder should never be condoned, but simply gain a fuller picture. The victim was 21 years old. That is 21 years of moments just as the one that ended his life. The murderer, possibly a gang member according to newspaper reports, is also a victim. A victim of his own actions, his crime.

A maniac is confused. He wears a 'wife beater' and dark baggy jeans. He lowers his arm and runs in one direction for two steps. He changes his direction back toward his victim. He raises his arm in a panic and another POP resonates the parking lot. Then, in a flash, he is a blur. He gallantly, frighteningly runs to my right. Never to be seen again. He hopes.

A martyr lays on the concrete. He is purged of all his sins in a bloody mess. His feet point toward heaven. His right arm, decorated with a gold watch, rests peacefully on the ground. But the two morbid puddles of red tell a different story.

We are in shock, a frenzy, trying to find some semblance of calm for the sake of the others around us. The word that begins a million questions is 'why'.

Life changes in a second. But for both of these men, their lives had been leading up to this one moment. Nothing really changed. Every action that preceded that moment remains cemented in the stone of time. Only the way we relate to history changes. History does not.

The murderer, a man gone astray perhaps? Or perhaps he knew what he was doing. Perhaps he reached a moment of clarity before he pulled the trigger. This is what he was put on earth to do. To play the role of God for one brief moment. This was his destiny.

Maybe he really is a victim of society. Bad childhood. Parents hated him, if he had parents at all. This society breeds murderers through our own apathy. We view the people around us as 'others'. They're not our concern. This man fell pray to his circumstances. He could not change them. Sure, others have, but they were lucky.

I don't know. What I do know is that it is not that simple. It is not a case of 'either or'.

The victim, a man in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe he ran with the wrong crowd. Things spiralled out of his control. He didn't deserve this.

Perhaps he did deserve this. Perhaps he never had a way to lose. He was a bad man who finally got what was coming to him. He is yet another one that society forgot, because he didn't want to be remembered.

Again, it is not that simple. That is the way this incident will remain. A barrage of questions with little or no answers. A complex entanglement of 'perhaps's and 'maybe's that in the end signify not a whole lot.

POP POP POP
I rose to peer out of the window.
POP

One man was dead, another man fled, and the witnesses were left with the thoughts swirling in each head.

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