Jeremiah's School of Levitation
Upsy-Daisy!
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Hell Comes to Richmond
There's a hole in me today.
Hell visited three families in Richmond over the last 10 days. A recent killing spree, allegedly by two seperate groups of individuals, claimed the lives of 10 people there, all of them killed in their homes, at the cusp of a fresh, inviting new year. However, as sick as I was over all of them, I couldn't sleep when I heard what happened to the Harvey family, how sickenly invasive the whole episode was. How a human could inflict such wounds upon children, and walk away, run away, without not going directly to bury themselves in dung and slit their own throats. But, rather, keep walking, heads upright. The saddest thing I've done in years was to see the photo of the Harvey's two smiling young girls, Stella and Ruby, 9 years old and 4 years old, trusting and innocent faces, wide with the panorama of earth's possibilities, and think that somebody tore their bodies. How? How do you do that?
I did not sleep much the night I read about it all, about how someone trapped the family in their own home and killed them within their own sole source of security and privacy. When I did sleep, I dreamed I had a silent conversation with Bryan Harvey, alone, in the stillness of his basement, where he died. I had nothing to say to him. What can you say? I just watched him as he curled up on his bed and looked into the sun falling on his backyard. Silent. He was thinking it was all his fault, attempting to have a beautiful life. It hit me hard because, well, I'm just trying to do the same, in my own private realm, under a warm sun, and hopefully surrounded by friends every now and then, and I can stretch and yell and cry and tell obtuse jokes in my own home, in my own space, and think that I have left the horrors outside. I never think that they may want to get in and disrupt and destroy a life that has nothing at all to do with horror. Nothing at all. You don't have to live by the sword to die by it.
It was the single most haunting dream I've had in years.
I'd like to think that the world is bright, has its havens, and your own place to play your guitar, or, like Kathryn Harvey, a place that presents to you your own dreams, so that you can do something like open a toy store, and love life enough to call your store The World of Mirth, like Kathryn Harvey did, but still, still you are visited by hell. Still, as much as you give heart to life, there's always hell, always.
Hell visited three families in Richmond over the last 10 days. A recent killing spree, allegedly by two seperate groups of individuals, claimed the lives of 10 people there, all of them killed in their homes, at the cusp of a fresh, inviting new year. However, as sick as I was over all of them, I couldn't sleep when I heard what happened to the Harvey family, how sickenly invasive the whole episode was. How a human could inflict such wounds upon children, and walk away, run away, without not going directly to bury themselves in dung and slit their own throats. But, rather, keep walking, heads upright. The saddest thing I've done in years was to see the photo of the Harvey's two smiling young girls, Stella and Ruby, 9 years old and 4 years old, trusting and innocent faces, wide with the panorama of earth's possibilities, and think that somebody tore their bodies. How? How do you do that?
I did not sleep much the night I read about it all, about how someone trapped the family in their own home and killed them within their own sole source of security and privacy. When I did sleep, I dreamed I had a silent conversation with Bryan Harvey, alone, in the stillness of his basement, where he died. I had nothing to say to him. What can you say? I just watched him as he curled up on his bed and looked into the sun falling on his backyard. Silent. He was thinking it was all his fault, attempting to have a beautiful life. It hit me hard because, well, I'm just trying to do the same, in my own private realm, under a warm sun, and hopefully surrounded by friends every now and then, and I can stretch and yell and cry and tell obtuse jokes in my own home, in my own space, and think that I have left the horrors outside. I never think that they may want to get in and disrupt and destroy a life that has nothing at all to do with horror. Nothing at all. You don't have to live by the sword to die by it.
It was the single most haunting dream I've had in years.
I'd like to think that the world is bright, has its havens, and your own place to play your guitar, or, like Kathryn Harvey, a place that presents to you your own dreams, so that you can do something like open a toy store, and love life enough to call your store The World of Mirth, like Kathryn Harvey did, but still, still you are visited by hell. Still, as much as you give heart to life, there's always hell, always.
Elliot, 12:52 AM
