http://lavondastaples.blogspot.com/
Five Minutes to Ugly
By
La Vonda R. Staples
Whether you worship God, Satan or no deity whatsoever there is one
thing which is a truism regarding human nature. And that thing is
rationality. Or rationalism. It may even be realism or plain old
logic. I believe that two people can always sit down and negotiate a
point of agreement. The only thing which interrupts negotiation is
power. Power does not always recognize external logic or need. Power
only recognizes power. This is simple but then again, isn't that
always the best and surest route through any equation?
I'm full of sadness over the execution of Muammar Gadhafi. I'm also
full of sadness over Miss Eunice and Charlie James. All three in
possession of a type of power and all three without the good sense God
gave shit. See, you're supposed to know or at least have the ability
to be made to know when your sun is setting. Gadhafi had lead a
nation before he was 30 years old and during a forty year reign he
could look out over millions of people and know that their lives were
in his two, pitiful, human hands. The same is true of Eunice and
Charlie. How many times did each one step into a bar and have nearly
every person alternately greet them with desire or envy? That's the
most seductive power. The power of youth and attraction. We are led
to believe or get drunk on the belief that it is a thing of always.
It isn't. I've been cute for a long time but I've also been rational
for a long time and I can tell you the absolute truth on this
subject. It takes longer and longer for me to become presentable. It
takes longer and longer to recover from a night of free stuff – none
of which is usable under any situation except the social. I know that
the power I have – pretty power – means nothing in ten years, twenty
years, when only the vestiges of my attraction remains. Just like
anyone else I'll have to review my glorious past in the frames of
photographs (frozen images of what I once was). Miss Eunice and Mr.
Charlie, both of them, never got the benefit of my grandmother's wit:
"chile, pick one and stick to it." I heard. I obeyed. No one has to
tell me that the five minutes have begun. I've picked one.
Muammar's five minutes more than likely came when an African
president came to see him offering asylum. Offering a chance for him
to keep his millions. Offering a chance for him to keep his family
intact. Muammar didn't listen and now all of his money and his
children are refugees to banks and nations. His refusal to hear the
ticking led to the end of his son's life. He could have saved
everything but drunk with forty years of power he had lost all
reason. Maybe, I like to think, that after the African president left
him, Muammar laughed it off. One minute past. Maybe he talked to his
sons. Two minutes past. Maybe he kissed his wives. Three minutes
past. Maybe he surveyed all that he would continue to hold. Four
minutes past. And then he continued to give orders to fight the
rebels. Five minutes past and his life was at an end. The real ugly
would begin.
Ugly isn't an adjective which denotes a lack of physical attraction.
Ugly is not the healed burn. It is not the scars of a warrior. It
isn't even a broken heart. Ugly is a sight which bestializes man.
Ugly is a state lacking all beauty. There is beauty in the healed
skin of a person who has experienced a burn. It is the mark of one
who has been honed, a human sword, in the pursuit of survival. And
your scars, internal and external, only mean that you have been
through some things and yet you live another minute, hour, day, year.
Ugly is not a scar or a defect of birth. Ugly is a group of people
who pile into a meat locker to take cheap camera photos of an aged
corpse, sans shirt, shoes, and covering for the head. Ugly is when we
use power where there is no ability to answer in kind. Muammar let
those five minutes pass and let himself, his son, and his country be
set upon by the ugly. Libya has no defense for the coming power,
greater than any it can imagine, which will relentlessly relieve it of
its wealth. Why else would a rebel army be given guns, tanks, and
missiles? Power rarely engages in altruism.
Muammar's body, bereft of power and spirit, spent four days on this
earth. The same way that the once beautiful woman and once handsome
man spends their last moments (really years) – alone and walking
soundless rooms. There is a price to be paid for ignoring that final
call through darkness and that hand extended through the mist of
pride, vanity and ego. The price is a type of death or absolute
death. Muammar, Eunice and Charlie all rest within the Earth and this
is where they would have rested anyway. But if the situation had gone
different. If the three of them and all of us had given respect to
those five minutes between when goodness comes to call and when the
scales are being weighed between keeping a hand on power and going
forward to the next phase of life – what would they have given to the
universe?
Muammar could have bounced more grandchildren. Miss Eunice could
have been the hand which guided her (would-be) spouse into the winter
of life, and Charlie could have used his position to help some
mother's son. All of that and more are possibilities.
They're gone. We're here. And our task within our circles of power
is to respect that space where there is an opportunity for beauty and
the likelihood of ugly. One minute. Two minutes. Three….
--
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