Yes, I Am

Chapter Twenty Eight.

  "It matters not how strait the gate, 
How charged with punishments the scroll, 
I am the master of my fate: 
I am the captain of my soul." 
-William Ernest Henley 

Late 1930's. Germany.

An old woman sitting in her rocking chair, knitting a tiny sweater for her grandson. A couple moving furniture in their new apartment, visualizing the life they're going to build together. A mother chiding her children to wash up before dinner. A little girl reading a book secretly by the light of a torch. A man whistling to himself as he cooked.

Then a bomb comes hurtling in right on top of them and in half a heartbeat, all those innocent lives are wiped out. So many dreams, so many hopes, so many accomplishments; all buried under the debris of rancour and ruin.

What were they thinking of a second before it hit them? Did they have regrets? Did they die with grace or halfway between a scream? Or the biggest question that has always plagued me- was it their destiny or could they have been saved? Maybe if the old woman had gone to visit her children instead of staying home. Maybe if the couple had decided on that other apartment two block over. Maybe if the mother hadn't said no to her children to go to that movie playing that night. Maybe if the little girl had agreed to visit her father instead of throwing a tantrum and staying home. Maybe if the man had come only one day late from the business trip. Maybe they all would have been safe.

We don't think about things like destiny and fate until tragedy occurs. It is inconceivable to human beings that one little decision could have prevented the affliction. Our defence mechanisms do not allow us to blame it on ourselves lest waves of anxiety crash down on us and bury us under their unforgiving current.

"If it's written in your stars, nobody can prevent it."

Can we? Or are we just instruments of a higher power, puppets forced to dance the way He wants and exit the stage when He wishes? Or do actions really have more consequences than we can imagine.

I often think of the day when Caleb and I fought and I agreed to go to a nightclub- the nightclub- with him. If I hadn't been an idiot, we wouldn't have fought, I would never in a million years have agreed to go to Pulse with him and he would never have gotten hurt. I wasn't a religious person. I didn't have the luxury of believing in Fate and God and a higher power. But even if I did, I would have lost my faith that day. Why would I worship a god that couldn't even protect the most innocent, most decent human being on this planet? So maybe all of it really was my fault.

If our life is mapped out in the stars, Caleb's stars had started dimming the moment he met me.