A friend of mine was killed today. It is easy to talk about him, a lot of people knew him, and their lives were influenced by him. It is easy to remember the stories people tell about him. But those stories, those people, seem so foreign and fake to me. All I can remember are the past few days now.
I remember how he seemed to know that he was going to die, and it scared the shit out of him. The poor thing, he was so gentle! He wasn't what people think he was, a hero or a martyr or something so romantic like that. People assume, because of those second- and third-hand stories they hear about him that he wouldn't know fear, that he would have been the embodiment of courage. I saw him differently though, I saw him cry himself to sleep sometimes. I saw him swear at God for his fate. I saw him contemplating, for days at a time, about taking the easy way out.
You might think because of this that he was a weak and cowardly man. Remember yourself then. Remember how you fail against whatever it is that you fear the most. Look back upon your inability to stand up for what you know is right, even in the smallest things. You are correct in your assumptions though; he was weak. He was human.
The ones that killed him still have his body. They use it as a media tool, a spectacle. It is a battleground between those who would call him a criminal and those who |
