The Fall of Night

Ok, so I lied about posting before the weekend... still, I encourage anyone brave enough to read the prior story/posts (as well as anything else of course :) Later this weekend, I should have another terribly long story posted, so you have so much to look forward to...

I have been reading a lot about politicizing fiction, particularly science fiction, and the debates that have resulted. For my part, I am politically moderate but understand that many of my readers are not and many that I read are not. I also see a lot of politics entwined with religion, particularly extremism and how it relates to 9/11 and beyond. My position, then as now, was that things were going to end badly, no matter what because nations have not generally learned that vengeance is not the same as justice. I think I have made that pretty clear in the past in my posts Reckonings and Ruin, and in other pieces I have yet to post. On the other hand, I am not so naive to think that war is sometimes necessary...

So, I am posting the following piece, written just after 9/11 (I think the day after) which, more than five years later, at times feels as if I have just written it. Then, as now, I did not see an end in sight...

'The Fall of Night'

I watched the fall of Night
Image after image hammering into me;
No horror, no fear, only sorrow...
For I knew what had to be.

I listened to speeches under the cover of Night
Word after word pounding my head;
As the anger, the madness, the pain...
Filled my heart with dread.

I awoke in the middle of the Night
Dream after dream piercing my soul;
Seeing the rhetoric, the resolve, the retribution...
Drive us into a war we have never known.

I sat and waited for Night to end
Knowing full well that it should;
As the fear, the horror, the pain mounted...
I wondered if it ever would.

C.