“And I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies that dwell therein shall be astonished at it.”
-- Leviticus; 26.32
About Mr. X, we needn’t be too kind. He was never one of us, but rather Odd, the way he urged we keep an open mind About things we’d already made our minds up on!
He seemed inclined to constantly upset Our apple carts; not so much by anything He said as by the way he’d sit and fret About our doing nothing about suffering.
We never tired of explaining how We had our lives and were content to fill Our places in the Grand Design–or how The world went on and on and men would spill,
From time to time, innocent blood, or How this figured in “The Great Necessity,” Was, in fact, inexplicable, taken for Granted, part of our preferred reality.
Mr. X grew gloomier, began to quote Biblical texts about loving neighbors. Our holy seers advised him not to note Inconsistencies in the human heart.
I do not know when we began to perceive Mr. X was an alien being; Or when, one by one, we came to believe For the good of all, he must be eliminated….
It is ever so much more pleasant now Without that vague malaise overhanging Our transactions…. We barely remember how His sad expression made us all uneasy.
Gary Corseri has taught in US public schools and prisons, and at US and Japanese universities. His prose and poems have appeared at Countercurrents, Counterpunch, Village Voice, The New York Times, Redbook Magazine, and hundreds of other periodicals and websites. His dramas have been produced on Atlanta-PBS and elsewhere, and he has performed his work at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum. His books include novels, and the poetry volume, “Random Descent” (Anhinga Press). He can be contacted at [email protected].
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