Justice, Patriotism, Freedom

I know they’ve been around for tens of centuries – three abstract nouns named Justice, Patriotism, Freedom, I used to revere until I had the chance to confront them with my fear: they were but mastodons of civic life. I met them one spring, at a May Day parade, wearing blue and throwing cherry blossoms from carriages; I remember the air being as fresh and clear as my tender years. For a while they vanished from the public eye; still you could find them in textbooks, presidential decrees, speeches, holding red carnets of party membership, the same abstract nouns named Justice, Patriotism, Freedom, hailed and praised as the only possible legacy, yet used and abused, literally exhausted in their mission, every day more haunted by the very ghost of their inner being, now shabby and paranoid, hiding behind uniformed cordons of yes men. It was December late, almost winter when they erupted from closets and dusty shelves into the night, three abstract nouns named Justice, Patriotism, Freedom, and I knew they were out somewhere because that night there were shots and smoke in the air, and the following nights, there were shots and smoke everywhere in the streets, the blood steaming warm in the University square seemed a red sea of carnets of old party members in madly despair. They possibly died that night, or just abandoned a worn out costume to assume a new look; shaved or grew beards, I wouldn’t know for sure, but in the next several months the most shameless came first with this lusty disgusting thirst for all three abstract nouns named Justice, Patriotism, Freedom, hasting to relabel shelves in the history warehouse, present and past. At last, to my surprise they even tried to franchise some sort of emergency kit of tin badges names with three abstract nouns Justice, Patriotism, Freedom, so you could not tell anymore white from black, and at that point I knew that all values had a shipwreck; then I swore to stay always with my lore, and never again trust the smoke in the air. No more. ©Elena Malec, California, January, 1997