27000 - without a comma, in gray, it
appears smaller, softer and easier to digress than to ingest both
the futility and reality of another w a r ... from
February 24, 2022 to September 10, 2023, hearing that
number, the next day reading the number and now choking on that
number. I do not retain numbers unless critical,
but what comes after critical, since before this are the
numbers. Visually
streaming from pixels individually unseen, not unlike the 27000 once called civilians, now called
dead in Ukraine, or from another geopolitical marker where once
called home, now called hell.
Flashing across the digital screen from the bombs and the newest
toy on the battlefield, the drone, retrofitted for destruction -
all scoring their hits, the toppled cities under siege. I
hate to see anything die, a n y t h i n g ... shall I close my
eyes? Yet closing eyes of the mind does provide
a means for contending and gate keeping the many contradictions
near and far.
The number will continue upwards in its current form, in its
day-to-day, frenzied, crazed and unpredictable pace.
And all with the intent for breaking the spirit of the other side
so they (as hoped) will lay down and bow to the presumptive, next
overseer. Once the turmoil subsides and all ruins
dusted and carted away, only disbelief will remain to bear such
witness to these too often missteps, distinctively abominable.
Yet as in all such manufactured calamities, the
sanguinary ride through the morass of where past (and dormant)
recriminations reside, erupt into the crash. Now,
only that which can be ordered forth by the few holding power will
come down to a single person with such authority (perceived or
otherwise) denouncing what began on some glorified principle of
sovereignty, cultural purity or other attempts to justify, will
unequivocally renounce and be receptive to peace. Then, a
semblance of rest through capitulation and a cessation of state,
sanctioned executions.
With winter's onslaught and the toll from
infrastructure collapse, extreme social and psychological trauma
and just too much of lost humanity, I heard a projection (or
someone's vision) to add two zeros to the number of Ukrainian citizens extinguished - but this
sounds irresponsible and sensationally misguided, fortunately,
highly improbable.
However,
few also thought such an invasion of this magnitude would
plant and revisit the grounds of Eastern Europe in this night
of day. Now, echos reverberate on the axis turning the
globe, memories short and some long, then the wake up call.
From the entombment of that past, thinking, wishing
impervious to repeat, has turned rogue.
Do these
conflicts really ever end or just pick up in different
locations under different flags - sometimes, even the same
colors facing off before as if destiny cannot settle on a
plan?
Each digit of the numbers is another human
erased. The numbers are silent, never crying, never
bleeding or screaming, that's for the living to do until their
number is attached to their toe, assuming this lower extremity is
still present for tagging.
NOTE: Estimated
total troop fatalities (from both sides) as of August 2023,
500,000 (NY Times)
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