Restless in the dust! (Conclusion)

By Jing Villamil

AS was written before and ten years hence and now, he who had challenged the gods must have felt the stirring of the wind as it began to keen a warning, forbidding sign. He had enough time. He could have gone himself on that mission unannounced, unheralded anytime before the registration deadline. In the stealth of the night, on foot, on fast motored 2-wheels, in heavy metal-skinned 4 wheels or heli.

He did not. He sent his wife instead – she of the lovely face, of the widest darkest smartest bravest eyes, of the smile to wipe off tears from a child in her arms.

To be sure, he surrounded her with an army of her own – his blood kins, lawyers, friends, supporters; but half of the number were journalists armed with mere pens, tapes, cams!

She felt she should have felt safe in the midst of this blanket of warm bodies, but why did her heart fluttered; why did her stomach quiver so? Why the ice at the tip of her fingers? Why the urge to take a lingering look at those she was leaving behind?

She kept in touch with him to the last minute. She was telling who stopped them on the road, what their group was told to do. Even her bones told her this was the end of the road for her, for all who were with her, for the innocents who just happened to travel on that same dusty road at the same time. No witnesses, was the recurring whisper, from their group, from the beasts.

Why was he not prepared for a scenario as this one? There was still time, no matter how short, to save her, to save some, to save one. He could have gathered his men in shortest a rush; he must have had armed followers of his own armed with guns, big guns, the biggest guns. She was his wife, mother to their young ones. Nothing can stop a man whose loved one is facing the unknown. A lover’s imagination knows no bounds.

Another woman as beautiful as his wife, who could not have loved his wife as much as he did . . . perhaps had done for his wife more. This woman draped her shawl tighter around her face. 0nly her eyes showed; eyes as dark and soulful as the wife.

When the beasts called for the wife, this woman swiftly stepped forward, ahead of the wife. While she was being raped, the ugly beast rammed into her mouth not a beastie kiss but the mouth of his gun. And burst open the back of her skull. Hers was a kinder death.

When the beasts found out they had the wrong wife, their rage found her fast. While she was being raped, she was at the same time being bullet-riddled with each and every grind. She must had welcomed death as one welcomed a long, lost dear friend . . . with an embrace.

Those who had lain so long, restless in the dust, must be given their just rest. May Judge Jocelyn grant them this.

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