The Death of Compassion III

The Death of Compassion 

You gathered, in your infinite knowledge and wisdom agreed that, it is better to skin the animal that is already dead, for if we are to skin the one whose heart is beating, it will run away! Yet it seems you forgot that the rotten odor of the dead animal will affect your smell. Worse still, how can you tear down and crumble that which is on the ground to the very ground where the heap of its demise lies? What happened to common sense? What is it, haven't you done enough.

The towers were rocky, the steeps were murky and slippery. Rough was the journey. A clear bid and potential supported. People holding the ladder, giving you their support, to do their bidding. A battle fought a war won and a victorious end but all to what end? To have those who supported you having the very same ladder they held for you to ascend having to be kicked down upon them. The sweat and the feet carry them to "your tents Oh Israel"...in disbelief mixed with disappointment. The questions asked... do we actually deserve this and where did we go wrong? You are enjoying and forgetting those under you, throwing down the ladder, how will you get down? How will the society welcome you back after that nasty experience?

A distraught mother. Left by the husband with five God's bits of wood and expecting another in few days time. Nothing to show, no place to lay her head. Dejected and rejected. Lost and hopeless. Seeing her children going to bed hungry tears her heart into infinite pieces like grains of corn flour. She melts seeing her world crumble and she cannot do anything about it, than watch in agony and count the days as they go by. Kneeling down, she prays for death, "O God when will it come?" her heart melts like butter being cut with a hot knife. In the quagmire and myriad of thought, cruel, harsh reality strikes her like a thrust of a poisoned arrow, "If I die as I wish, who will take care of these chicks and shield them from this wicked world?" God remains silent, He is not going to answer, will he? The only available option: hang on like you are hanging by a thread. The husband grouching and munching like a king in the hands of another. Like a barbaric drunk cursed by an irrevocable curse, he drinks to stupor and his memory is erased.

A soldier in the midst of battle. Bruised and wounded. Captured by his cruel tormentors and betrayed by his friends. The excruciating torture he endures, his teeth being pulled one after another, what an agony. After the teeth, they go to the fingers, limb after limb the cruel captors make it slow and painful. Endurance and hope keeps him ticking, hoping that when all is paid and done, he will reunite with his wife and son. Sadness overwhelms his soul like a dark cloud causing massive darkness. After a night of painful torture, he wakes up to the news, "I don't care what happens to you. I'm in a better place now..." Broken, numb speechless, all hope is gone. That was the day we lost him...

The pain of ingratitude and the death of compassion strikes you differently every time. It is a different kind of unexpressed pain. Knowing that you had something with them and not against them. You pass them in the streets and in the corners, rubbing shoulders as you walk past them, you look at each other in the eye, the pain grasps you deep. You pretend as if you never knew each other, yet you pretend like strangers who never knew each other. The reality of the unhealed wounds and pains strike you like something else but you cover them and swallow them. Hate it or like it, AS MUCH AS WE MAY HURT AND HATE EACH OTHER, THERE WAS A TIME THAT I GAVE YOU ALL I HAD AND I BURNED FOR YOU TO THE LAST DROP OF MY BLOOD! I WAS AT MY BEST FOR YOU...

Mutsawashe 

Ifechukwu 

22/05/25