after the bombs

"There must have been a moment, at the beginning, were we could have said no. But somehow we missed it. Well, we'll know better next time." Stoppard said that, and it's comforting in times like this, with the city on fire in the distance and the sirens finally dying down. They'll be here soon. I don't remember ever thinking about it. I don't remember there being a choice. Not even that moment of paralysis where you're afraid to do what you know you have to do.

It's almost quiet now. The bombs have stopped going off. The little crackling radio my ladylove found is telling us the fires are under control, that it's over. It's going to be all right, they keep telling us. And we hold each other's hands and hope that it really, truly is.

We've done something ugly. We can't take it back now. I don't know if we ever could. I don't know if we could ever even stop ourselves. I'm just gripped with this weird certainty that if we were ever free, it was only right now. When the glass broke on the windows of those faceless offices, when the fires blossomed out, that is when we finally started being free.

If even then. We had no choice, or we missed it. Can you really be free if you didn't choose it? We're dead either way.