Back to blog

In the aftermath of a great slaughter there always seems to be a great love among the survivors affected. Like after great sex, all the passions are spent, sheets a mess, weird fluids here and there, we are ready to make reasonable plans for brunch, perhaps maybe even be willing to stand in line for it. After all it’s a nice day, we can stand our fellow humans, our hearts are filled with the love of our fellow man.
Until the next slaughter.
After the slaughter, everybody is sorry. Everyone has lost someone, everyone has lost some things, lots of things, some lose everything.
We hope we will do better, later. We do hope that. We pray for that. We sacrifice for that. We extend extra kindnesses and tolerances for that. We make art for that, we put up “Never Again” signs in many languages at the exits of concentration camps and at atomic plazas where once human beings did things together – markets and shops and businesses and marriages and baby showers, and then were obliterated.
But we are like a deadly snake asleep in a jar mend for turnips or garlic bulbs. After awhile we forget that we were sated, that we had finally had enough and we want to break out of the dark coolness and slaughter again, and feed.
During brunch, however, we write symphonies, build houses, figure out medicines, learn to be healthier and faster and wiser and better. We hold each other tight and try to make room, to share just a little, to care just a little more. When the check comes we still linger, over coffee, unwilling to let one another go into what we fear may happen again