What the fox knows. What the fox feels.

Trying to outrun danger is a tiring and disorienting race.  When one runs, not to get somewhere, but to getaway.  When the goal is just 'not here...not, there' both here and there have  lost any meaning. Any direction out is all that counts.  What to save from the threat ? What to take with us,when the place we are going is just 'not here'.  Refugees. Migrants. They know what I'm  describing. It's when Hell  is so close that anyplace else is freedom, an invitation to a banquet, even if it's a paper bag with old shoes and a mouldy crust. Not running. At peace. She's looking so peaceful. That's what they say of all the dead and gone. Because it's  irrefutable. They are not here. Not with us, who might have been able to love them, save them, feed them, listen to their stories, let them be somewhere. Here. With us. Just like us. Alone. Maybe afraid. On the run. Toward somewhere safer. Somewhere really safe.

where is the quality of mercy?

Sisters and brothers of mercy.  I am searching for you here in a harsh place where old wounds never heal, and slights and injuries  kept fresh and painful with selective memories of only the worst of those we blame for misfortunes.  No one deserves this.  Harm done, but not meant, is not healed by new harm to those least to blame.  This is toxic. This poison has maimed and polluted the memory  of those best of times. Why cannot the burden of loss be shared ? But no the loss must be borne by those who did not bring it about. By causing the least harmful to suffer  the greater harm. This is not justice. It is perverse. When adults who are meant to protect the next generation harm them this is abuse, bullying, and perversion. When are the quasi adults going to accept their responsibility to do no harm to the innocent? When are these aging self absorbed infantile egos going to accept loss and move on to maturity? What childhood pain could be so crippling that adult responsibility is never accepted, because the greed  for all the goodies is so fierce that the notion of sharing what is left is unthinkable.

Have those who suffer, intended or even wished them any harm?  Not until now. Because the harm dealt is disproportionate and total. And intentional. Cruelty is the deepest kind of  stupid because as it harms the victim it pollutes the humanity of the actor.  Such a  'victory' counts as a loss all around.