The Styx of Our Hearts

In the frenzy of the partying, shopping and decorating that accompany the holidays, nobody had an inkling when  imperceptible  globules of dark essence oozed from every human on earth and somewhere between time and space converged into a single hazy shape. 

Its feet never touching the ground, the shadow slowly made its way to its destination. There the haze cleaved to a man. The haze  took over all the blood flowing in the man's veins and arteries; and where the heart and mind used to be there was only  a spit black chilling wasteland. 

As the world raced by, the sun spun wildly and for an ephemeral moment, the shadow and Adam Lanza were one. 

Newspaper headlines screamed a story of horrifying carnage that day of  December 14, 2012, only 10 days before Christmas.

 

In the leafy Connecticut suburb of Newtown,  20-year old loner Adam Lanza first killed his own mother and then went to his school and methodically and brutally shot  25 others, many of them 6-7 year old children still with their baby teeth. And then Adam took his own life. 

The sum of all our darkness  had  since then disintegrated back into  globules and returned to where they dwell -- deep in the styx of our hearts.

 

6-year old Emilie Alice Parker, one of many children killed by Adam Lanza. Photo from The Huffington Post.

 

- Ariel Murphy