Peacekeeper

"Peacekeeper" - a reading (on YouTube)


She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door. Her die to cast. Her Rubicon.

Her fingers tarried on the lavender silk scarf draped beside the book, her only decision left to make. The scarf was a memento from her final mission abroad, keeping the peace after someone else’s war.

Her mother would say she was throwing away a perfect career. Her father, were he still speaking, would say it was no career at all, just a rest stop on the journey to her ultimate destination of nurturing her children’s destinies.

The book had been her guide, her field manual with all its rules and regulations. The Book of Life in which she had once thought all her scribed deeds would serve as the counterweight that would open the gates of heaven. Now, that life with all its discipline and order was being erased one page at a time as popular protests had transformed into an uprising on their way to revolution.

If she walked out that door and gave the order, hers would become a Book of the Dead, no longer filled with rigid formulae but imprecise incantations that she hoped might shepherd the dying martyrs back into the light. First, she would have to share their darkness and pray she didn’t join them on their odyssey through the underworld, a world lit only by fire with the screams of innocents serving as its siren song. Theirs was a code that demanded eye for eye, limb for limb. A redemption of blood.

Her men awaited her decision. Would they follow a woman into the chaos? Her second said they would if she gave the order. If so, there would be no turning back. If not, there might be nothing to turn back to. The embassies were burning, the airport had been seized, the institutions of a crumbling government served as the strong points to oppress the streets.

Her loyalty lay in question only with the generals, the cabal, the junta. She had sworn an oath to an ideal not an individual. Better to die in the square performing her duty, she told herself, than cowering here obeying lawful yet immoral orders. This is not Srebrenica. We are not the Dutch.

She turned to the window. Deep in the rugged hills she had once called her home, spring had unfurled its multicolored banner. In the city, trees lined the ancient processional, standing at attention in their bright dress uniforms of yellow-green. Golden allamanda trumpeted their victory over the tyranny of winter. With fireworks of pink and red, the azalea celebrated the lifting of the long, dark siege of night. In the public gardens, stately roses stood sentinel by the monuments, festooned with lavender blossoms that had come to symbolize her people’s struggle. Early on, those blooms had adorned the soldiers’ rifles in the square. Now, their petals fell like velvet tears as they daily mourned the martyrs’ graves.

At home, she was the peacekeeper, the one who kept her father and mother, her father and brother from open conflict. Her father remembered only their people’s victories, a golden age when few dared oppose their might. She had witnessed the ambiguities of war. Here, there would be no peacekeepers, no foreign intervention. The only peace would be one forged within.

Slowly, she wound the scarf around her sleeve, knotting the silk as tight as a tourniquet, its color reflecting her decision. Quietly, she closed the door behind her, shutting the book out of sight even as she began issuing her orders.

© 2012 Edward P. Morgan III