EVERY NOW and then the pricklies return. And when they do, I know that I am helpless to stop them.
The sensation feels like darkness. It is faceless and consuming. It seems to surround me like black water in a pool and I feel I cannot breathe. It is something terrible. It is evil. It is you.
You have made me feel guilty to smile. You have made me feel ashamed to laugh. You have taken my joy, and I hate you for it.
You have made my father weep and my friends fear. You have shown my baby sister that monsters do in fact exist - that they are not reserved for the bedroom closet or to the dark places in an attic. They are living, speaking, breathing beings, indistinguishable from what is human and what is good.
You have extinguished the lives of children who could not yet even talk and left parents who must now live the rest of their lives never knowing the sound of their child's voice. You have taken our parents and friends from us. You have killed our countrymen and women for no greater reason than because they believed in the American flag.
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You have invaded our homeland, a place that even we acknowledge as imperfect, but a place that is on the right track, to massacre and devastate. Our country is a place where freedom and equality constantly are being defended and upheld at the risk of preventing such attacks in the future. You have destroyed a fundamental part of our lives and taken away from us what we cherish. And we want to hate you. We will always hate you.
You have embarrassed all of humanity with your gruesome wit and hideous intelligence. Armed only with knives and box cutters, you've converted our very own jetliners into flying bombs. You planned an attack that you knew would be videotaped and broadcast into every American home, and hence, into every American heart.
You have taken the innocence of my generation. We are a generation that has not needed to face such casualty or horror, a generation that, perhaps unfairly, has lived during an amazing period of peace. There is peace no longer, and we are trying to come to grips with it. The change already has occurred. We will feel it soon.
You have killed a lifestyle, and for what? We cry for blood; we cry for war; we cry for revenge. And for what? As if the trial and execution of a few fellow human beings could ever alleviate the anguish we are suffering, as if new images of bloodshed or of a new war could ever soothe our wounds.
But you are evil.
You must know that the whole world will never mourn your passing. We will not feel sorrow for your fate or the fate of your followers. We will never sympathize with your "cause." We will not budge one inch, and we will not let this change consume who we are at our core.
We will celebrate the day you are destroyed, and we will work steadfastly and with great strength until that day arrives. We will show courage in the face of pure evil. We will show you soon.
But we do not understand.
Is this what you hoped to accomplish? Is this what you wanted to give to the world? Is this what you wanted to share with humankind?
Why? Why did you attack children? Such an act is not even barbaric. It is incomprehensible. It is sheer, genuine evil. Perhaps that is the only answer, as hollow as it is.
You say you have done this in the name of religion? What religion? We have shown you what religion is. We have come together to pray for peace and to pray for healing. Now we pray for justice.
Justice is coming, and you know it.
Perhaps you simply wanted to show us how much you hate. Perhaps you only wanted us to realize the depths of your hatred. Feel now the depths of our resolve.
We will not be cowed. We will not be afraid of blind darkness wherever we may find it. We will never fear evil. We will never fear you.
You have failed. America is stronger than imagination allows. As one nation, we will respond. As one nation, we will ensure our safety and our children's safety. You have shown that even they are not safe from your hatred. As one nation, we will make the world safe for all that we cherish.
We will hunt you until you have perished.
As our president said, "War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others. It will end in a way and at an hour of our choosing."
You have failed. And we are coming to get you.
(Luke Ryan's column normally appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at lryan@cavalierdaily.com.)
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