Ultra thin lines sometimes

  When it comes to national rallying and particular countries taking initiative, it can be ultra thin lines in the sands of time.

  Passmore talks about a build up of sentiment and shifts in loyalties before World War I.  As people were jostled about in changes to business and government, their "chances" seemed better with this group or that.  The sentiment of "hating the other" wasn't new to humanity.  For that we can turn to works recording Ancient History, even before Jesus' time on earth.  

  Back in Old Testament times even as one tribe or group captured another's place and enslaved, relocated the humans there was resentment and protection of self.  Mine, yours is one of the first "games" that children in every culture reason with.

  Passmore cites some examples in the well-known population centers of Europe where tradition was the great influencer even as more modern actions, like labor strikes and claiming voice for particular people became "options".

  We were watching on TV! An excited voice spoke into a cell phone.  Television, yes!

  It was not all that long after the Berlin Wall had been hammered down.  There'd been Ceasefire in the Middle East.  It brought people back out into the open air.  Some insisted on waving banners.  Young and old people who'd been contemporary people turned cave people for the warring all around.

  I know, I know.  But let this heart beat PEACE, that's what we want.  

  From another room in the apartment came Irish CHRIST, CHRIST, NOOOOOOO.  Cellphones were snapped shut.  Someone pulled a computer's plug out of the wall and the friction left a brown scar above the outlet's "eyes".  Oh MY GOD, NO, MY GOD.

  On the television the sun was shining brightly then the camera blurring.  The camera then steadied on military-types standing on a very high wall and shooting into the crowd.

  "The Great War, the peace treaties, and the economic difficulties of the inter-war years fundamentally changed the situation (48)....beleagured governments made substantial concessions....popular discontent and uprisings all over Europe caused frightened governments to reinforce democracy and grant increased rights...." (48).

  Enter the Russian Revolution.

  If fear can be likened to a fire, the fires of revolution flared and provoked even more fear.  Communist "movements" popped up in European countries like Hungary, Finland, France, and Germany.  "Not only did communism promise the destruction of capitalism, but of the family, and it took up the cause of ethnic minorities all over Europe" (49, Fascism, Passmore).

  Over there...

  A young man in shorts and rubber sandals made it back to a shelter.  A man gruffed his shoulder.  "I saw your mother call you and tell you to run." He guffawed.  "Wasn't my mother.  Was my woman.  And I walked.  Didn't run."

  They fell silent.  Flipping the phone open and closed didn't make it ring. 

  "Should I call again?!  Those assholes.  They promised."

  "Politicians lie, soory sweetie," a Puerto Rican stood up and said, then sat back down.  The olive green surplus jacket mostly covered by like twenty different cottony and silk scarves.  Rings on every finger softly tapped each other.

  Flipping through the boom box the sounds on the radio the usual pop and rock music.  "Nobody cares," someone said.

  "Everyone cares.". Someone else said.

  "Mebbe das problemo." Said a student from local university.  "Knock it off jerk," a woman snapped at him.  Several more people came tramping up the wooden stairs.  Backpacks and books and a grocery bag of food.  "I'll take a survey," one woman said.  Two or three people spoke at once, for and against Netanyahu's "way".  A graduate student fond of telling people about nausea and Nietz-sha didn't knock on the door to the room where the TV was.  There was shouting but not fighting.  

  "I meant mac-n-cheese or spaghets.  Survey says?"

  "Cheesay spagettes?" The Puerto Rican asked but people had settled into spots.  Pillows between and under stretched calf muscles and sore knees.  Mad scribbling in notebooks, staring at the ceiling, feet marching.  "What do you write?" A smoky voice asked.

  A woman closed her notebook.  Another said to a person just shipped here from Czechoslovakia, "They'll give those kids awards." 

  "The ones shot at?"

  "The ones who went all that way to at least beg for peace."

  "They're not all kids," the Irish man said.

  "No?"

  "No.  Everyone should eat something.  I will tell you about a Church group that went over.  All ages.  In fact," he went into the kitchen area and dumped the macs in with the spaghetti, "I am due to touch base with them this evening, and I will let you all listen."

  The young woman with a cellphone locked herself in the bathroom.

  "Put those smelly things back on you feet," another woman ordered the student.  The sneakers had once been new and bright white but looked like crumbling faces on the floor.

  From a notebook...

  Dance with flag.  The airplane wheel scraping tarmac and spraying heat and rubber ziplined people and place together.  The man who'd given his shirt to someone whose own shirt was bloodied had a hairless chest showing beneath his sportcoat.  As people made way to grassy area the sportcoat came off to reveal an Egyptian flag on shoulders.  The sportcoat hung on a slender finger, then slipped to ground as the man held the corners of the flag like a superhero's cape.  Exhausted jogging and then the man dropped on knees and kissed the ground.  Over and over.  So glad, so glad.