Punchline
A guy walks into an elementary school. Sounds like the setup to a joke. Then he opens fire, killing a pack of babies, just three years out of the cradle, six years from puberty, and a good sixty some-odd years from the grave.
That’s called a punch-line.
Blood mixed with finger paint, creating new and terrible colors. I won’t forget the colors, because I had to clean it all up. A war-time president with a nobel peace prize approaches a podium. He sheds some tears for those dead babies. Then he goes off to the secret underground war room and orders drone attacks on some tiny Middle Eastern Village. Brown kids are killed. Nobody cries.
That’s called irony.
They didn’t have any finger paint. Faithful tragedy junkies log onto the internet, and “like” memorial pages for all those dead babies. Then they like a page advocating gun control. They do all of this while sitting on their asses and managing a virtual farm.
That’s called multitasking.
Celebrities visit a small town where it all happened, like plastic angels descending from Heaven to provide comfort to the afflicted. Then they fuck back off to Hollywood until some other tragedy happens. That’s called charity. The world cries and mourns for all those dead babies. Then it forgets.
That’s called progress.
A man walks into a high school. It sounds like the set-up to a joke. He opens fire, and kills a pack of babies, only twelve years from the cradle and about fifty years from the grave.
That’s called a chorus, ’cause it keeps repeating.