As Time Goes By by Elizabeth Schilling
I walked through the doorway and he was asleep, I could hear the subtle beep of his heart rate. Even though it was a hospital of sick people, it felt comforting to be here. Maybe it was the sounds of the families coming together, or the newborns in their mother’s arms. I looked at him, and he looked frail and old, and I remembered when he would pick me up and swing me like an airplane. Those were the good times. Then he came into our life. We didn’t know him at first, but we knew there was someone. My mother was having an affair, and it was tearing her apart from my father. At first we thought we were just being paranoid, but then I caught another man in our bathroom. He said he was one of mommy’s “business associates” but I was 10, and knew better. I wondered if I should tell my father, I knew that if I told him, it would lead to divorce, but for once I wasn’t selfish, and realized there was no more love in my parent’s relationship. I told my father, and that night all I could hear was screaming, then my father coming into my room, waking me up, and telling me to pack everything and be ready to leave in 20 minutes. I didn’t know where we were going, but I knew that it was over. I contemplated how my life would be without my parents together, and this reputation. All I knew was that I couldn’t trust my mother anymore, and that it would just be me and my father from now on. He is my best friend, and I can’t ask for anymore. Fast forward a few decades and here I am, sitting by my father’s hospital bed, only having each other.
I wake up, and see my father coming back from the bathroom. I must’ve fallen asleep on his bed, because I was sitting in my chair, with my head by the foot of his bed.
“Good morning sunshine. You really need to do something about your snoring.” He says in a cheerful manner.
“’Morning dad, how are you feeling?”
“Feeling mighty fine darling, almost as though the heart attack never happened”
“Well that’s good, do you need anything? I can get you food from the cafeteria, or some water.”
“No, nothing, I just want to talk to my daughter about her life. Because, last I remember, she was going to prom with dear old Anthony. Well, there are some other things I remember, but that’s the last vivid one. So honey, tell me everything.”
So I reminded him of everything that had happened since then, like how my real estate company is doing great, and reminding him about my dog Jojo. We spent hours just talking, and then it was time for me to get home. I told him I would visit him the day after next, and if he wanted anything else before I left.
“Just one thing.” He points to his right cheek, and makes a puckering face. So I give him a kiss on the cheek and run off.
As I head out to my car, I think about all the things that I purposefully didn’t remind him, such as my husband, son, and the car crash that killed them. Since that accident several years ago, I have lived alone with our Bernese mountain dog, Jojo. It has been just the two of us for about, 3 years now. I couldn’t believe how life was without them, and that once again it was just me and my father, side by side, having no one but each other. Now I am finally starting to realize, that one day, I won’t have my dad, and it might just be me.
A Most Simple Proposal for Middle East Peace by Jon Yam
The religious way must be addressed first and fore most. Religious symbols remain the largest obstruction to peace in the region. Being home to the holiest shrine the world could possibly have in Jerusalem, it has been a point of contention between not only Palestinian Arabs and Jewish Israelis, but also between Jews, Muslims, and even Christians the world over. This symbol has served as a point for countless wars spanning from the Roman Wars in Palestine to the Crusades to as recently as the 1949 war of Independence for the state of Israel. Conflicts have experienced everything from children killing children, woman and boys martyring themselves for the cause of Allah, and Israeli police men suffering numerous concussions from stones and shoes thrown at them. Enough is enough even if it is not an Israeli-Palestinian problem, it will become some other forces problem whoever occupies this region and hold the holy city. Even if atheist China were to conquer Palestine and instill martial law much like they have in Tibet and Xinjiang, there would still be open armed conflict over who controls the purported Holy Land and its relics. Thus, the easiest way to solve this problem, it’s the complete razing of any holy relics, such as the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Wailing Wall, and Church of the Holy Sepulcher, in the region. Much conflict stems from who controls these holy relics, but if they stand no more then there is nothing to fight over but a barren patch of land in a desert. This would resolve issues of conflict over religious sites in the area. Ultimately, the violence would move from that area of the Middle East towards the country or countries that razed these sites, but on a positive note the area would see a reduction in violence. In creating a scenario where Israeli’s and Palestinian’s are force to come together to work to combat a common enemy, it will bring the two warring states together.
Because of five decades of nearly continuous war, large desperate communities of Palestinian refugees have formed in both the West Bank and Gaza areas of Palestine. These refugee camps are a desolate as any other in the World stricken with starvation, poverty, and unemployment. The demolition of Holy Relics would be a wonderful opportunity to aid these financially disadvantaged by providing employment to clear out the rubble from Jerusalem. In addition, with more real estate in the city, Jerusalem would be rebuilt with homes for those displaced by the wars thus clearing out the refugee camps. Each building can provide a bathroom on every floor, running water, electricity, a roof, and a system of waste disposal that the refugees can only dream of living in a camp. Thus caring for the poor and most wretched by giving them shelter and work will ease tensions between the two nations as now they can resume life rather than sit in a desolate camp pouting about whether there will be a meal that day.
The demolition of holy sites in Jerusalem will also open up a large and quite profitable relic business to power the local economy. There is not a religious institution on this Earth that does not value relics with holy possibilities. Take for example relics as a the Shroud of Turin and the Kabba, these objects are not but a piece of cloth and a big box with a rock in it, yet they hold an immense amount of religious value. Enough that a basilica and an entire city and pillar of Islam were built around revering these objects. Next to add to that list would be a piece of Jerusalem. No object could possibly hold more sentimental value than owning a piece of one of the holiest city on the planet. But the economic benefits of the sale or even the gifting of such relics go above and beyond anything ever seen before. The prime minister of Israel exchanging a relic from the Al-Aqsa Mosque with the Palestinian Prime Minister for a piece of the Wailing Wall would be an image engraved in history as a monumental feat.
In addition to the economic and religious benefits to be found from destroying Jerusalem, many political ones can be formed as well. Since it will be neither the Jews nor the Arabs who raze the city no side can point a finger at the other and blame it for the destruction. Also, it would afford a unique opportunity to unite two factions so bitterly divided by decades of gruesome history to join forces in reconstructing Jerusalem. After all, Jerusalem is neither just an Israeli nor Palestinian city, but a city propagated for tourism. If not for the major attractions of the Golden Mosque, Wailing Wall, etc etc the town would be a hole in the wall in the middle of a desert. For the longest time the city was divided into sectors based on what religion a person identified with. Even now the city is split between a Palestinian half and an Israeli half. Much of the fighting that has gone on in the holy city is to ensure that the other group does not dare touch their holy mosque. However, if they are all destroyed simultaneously and by something or someone else, either side cannot blame the other for doing the deed. Thus a bond can be forged through trial by fire that can unite the Israeli and Palestinian people in a way in a sense lining up the political interests of both states to rebuild a settlement after its destruction.
This modest proposition is just one of many possible routes that can be taken to forge a peace in Israel-Palestine the area has not had since the end of the Nineteenth Century. This bitter conflict has divided the region for too long and the blood of the dead runs thicker than the River Jordan. Extraordinary problems call for extraordinary solutions. Whether or not this simple plan for peace is adopted or another, the hope is that at some point in time Peace can be brought to the Middle East without the extermination of anymore human life.
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