Article

The article spoke to me this morning
as I opened up the Register
with my steaming mug of French Brew
and a piece of burnt, buttered toast
on the table next to me.
"Two Killed in New Haven Shooting"
was the block-lettered headline
which proceeded to give a report
of a man and his wife
found dead in an empty parking lot.
The article mentioned their names and age,
but little else.
It made me slightly sick, to think of them:
two innocent humans
rising up from the dawn of their birth -
survivng many hardships along the way,
graduating high school, college -
uniting in the sanctified act of marriage...
promising to lead a life of happiness...
and for what? Their whole life - reduced to
a few paragraphs
on page three of a newspaper
that failed to mention their wants,
their needs, their desires, their passions.
What about people they will leave behind?
What about their empty apartment
that echoes of their past dinners?
What about their half-empty photo album
that is aching to be filled with smiling faces?
Yet still I finish my toast, coffee;
and I drive off to my place of work
with a slightly sick stomach
and a deeply-concealed realization:
I am so glad it wasn't me.


~J.V.Harker~
~19 November 2008~