56. 'MAN KILLS WIFE AND DOG AND SELF'

'MAN KILLS WIFE AND DOG AND SELF'

The headline does not just cover the moment - it speaks

for something broader than that. I am walking the walkway

to nowhere, really. At my feet is a dead bird brushed off

to the side and forgotten. It is small and still lovely and brown.

I wonder at its death, and the why. Along the way, just as

sadly, I hear the wails of a squirrel, trapped it seems in a gutter.

In panic, in anguish, it is calling aloud, a noise of help and

desperation. A few people stop and talk; it is trapped deep in

the gutter, with no means of rescue. Perhaps only time itself

can silence this thing. More sadness abounds - high in the

sky, a soaring hawk. Around me, dead leaves fall.

I figure there must be sadness like this everywhere, and constant.

We attend to that which we can - or may - when we've a mind

to, so as to protect ourselves. The hurt, of course, is always

there. We just do not want it to be ours. That which we ignore,

if we can, we ignore at our peril but of our own will. After all,

there are no bombs falling from above. Our salvation at least

will be spared those types of deadly and fiery deaths of bombs

and furnace and flames and flares. Still, an ever-present sense

of dread and doom still loiters. We really can avoid, in fact, nothing.

Man kills wife, and self, and dog.

Another most pitiable and horrid tale.

Something gruesome like murder - for news,

for tabloid, for sensational shock.

A headline does not just cover the moment.

It must speak for something broader than that.