1/6/21

Caroline felt it.

Felt the breathlessness that followed the utter outrage.

Felt the nation pause, still, wonder.

Felt the cold and unyielding hands of disbelief.

She knew history had spun its new and shining threads again and again and again in the recent years. She knew that she was living history, a breathing embodiment of the history books children would read twenty, thirty years down the road without any care but barely passing their history tests filled with facts and events that they did not see, hear, nor live.

What would she tell them about this moment?

How would she describe the air, the disbelief, the shock?

Ideals had attacked ideals. But how she could make a young child understand that which she herself had trouble coming to grips with, she had no idea.

“Idolatry,” she heard.

“Radicals,” she heard.

“Hypocrites,” she heard.

“Psychopaths,” she heard.

They were all just words left in the wake of shock.

Ideals had attacked ideals. History had its needles raised, pen poised. A nation held its breath.

Caroline felt it.

And held her own as history once again brought down that untimely pen.