What Would You Do
Your hand is on the controls.
Your finger on the button.
All you have to do is press.
What would you do?
If you were given an order
To eradicate thousands
On the chance you'd get the one you need?
Erase them from existence.
Men, women, children;
Parents, siblings, friends;
Teachers, mathematicians, artists, nurses...
Wipe their realities from the face of the earth.
But for many, not their memories.
In fact,
The ending of one battle may result in the vengeance of a thousand.
Or it may not.
The murder of thousands may mean salvation for millions.
But people don't care about millions.
We care about the one, or handful, we each lose.
For, in the mathematics of life,
The scoring is more like in golf,
And so is the conclusion -
We end up in a hole.
Is this not power? Responsibility?
The power to remove life as if G-d never meant for it to be?
But, if your answer is "I don't know,"
How well do you really know yourself?
Crisis brings out our true selves.
Can we learn who we are without it?
And if not, irony screams louder than the suffering we cause:
How a person discovers themself through the destruction of others.
Is this human nature?
Your hand is on the controls.
Your finger on the button.
All you have to do is press.
What would you do?
Copyright © Elaine Ho | Year Posted 2016
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