Hunting Game

Neither eloquent poetry, nor well-constructed lines of prose are enough to convey the impact of your actions. In fact, your corruption isn’t worthy of being immortalized through these noble art forms. Instead, here are a few directives you might want to take into consideration; the public is aware that a thorough stakeout…I meant investigation, takes time. In the meantime, should we spill some blood in an ancestral ritual to ensure that the dead are sent to a less tumultuous place? Or sprinkle it over everything; letting it settle on the reports and evaluations and statements, signed and banished to the dark recesses of a municipal building basement? Are we expected to watch in silence as it seeps into the scorching tar where it fell, stewing like the remnants of slaughtered prey, evidence of another successful day on the prowl?

You earned your fatigues, your hunter’s honor; you were certain this was your calling. Maybe you grew up with a broad-shouldered father, whose presence filled an entire room. The top of his head seemed to brush the ceiling, and his metal adornments reflected the light in a way you had only seen stars shine. Or maybe you sat wide-eyed in front of the television every Saturday morning as your favorite heroes emptied the streets of all that was vile, all the monsters that hid under your bed at night and the gnarled hands in shadowy hiding places snatching innocent souls. It’s possible that you spent your early years escaping these shadows and vowed never to lose yourself in them.

Somewhere along the way, your straight and narrow path turned into a dark alleyway stinking of smoke and retribution. You lost your purpose; the meaning of “doing your job” was hidden deep in the maze of morality, obscured by rows and rows of red tape. You became another obedient cog in a machine whose furnace is only satisfied with the ashes of the hopes and dreams of a people; their rights and dignity are logs for the eternally raging flame. You flashed, and shot, and slammed, and cuffed. After all, that’s the only language these people understand.

Perhaps you are just trying your best. You titter nervously beside the water cooler as your colleagues spit insults and crude humor, just so you don’t seem like a judgmental spoilsport. But you’re an okay kind of guy, you really are. After all, you grew up with friends that represented at least a fraction of the rainbow spectrum. We’re all people, aren’t we? The amount of melanin they were blessed (or cursed) with doesn’t change the way you view them. Or maybe you’ve studied the machine’s manual meticulously. You make sure to project your voice, but not too much; you starch your shirt and give firm handshakes. You color within the lines, most importantly, you always stay on the sidewalk. There’s nothing wrong with this, I have no right to judge you. You can’t go out there and look crazy in front of people! You are, and forever will be, an ambassador for everyone who shares the minutest percentage of your ancestry. That is absolutely unfair, and of course it’s not your fault if the others won’t pull up and shape up.

So when is the next expedition scheduled to take place? Or is it underway right now? Should we take cover? I suppose we must rid ourselves of the audacity to merely exist anywhere in the vicinity of your playground, I’m sorry, game reserve. Remain calm, hold onto rationality- to talk about calm at a time when rage is striking the ground like thunder thrown from heaven? To point out that remaining calm is easier said than done is a tired understatement. Let us wash the streets, scrub them with the tears of all the mothers left standing with empty hands, with the nectar of the futures that were stunted before they even thought about blooming. Unfortunately this isn’t strong enough to wash the residue and hate off your hands. Perhaps we can form a committee and convene a meeting to probe further into the question of fixing this putrid system which authorized you to aim and fire in the first place.