Smoke without fire
I dreamed I awoke to the sound of breaking glass.
It was happening all over the land:
synagogue windows, plate-glass in high fashion department stores
and little neighbourhood delicatessens,
mansions, tenements, and apartment blocks,
all had them put through.
Many who were attacked were not actually who they thought they were.
Some had tried, successfully, they had thought,
until they were named and shamed in Julius Streicher's racist rag,
to turn their backs on their very natures,
and their neighbours were shocked:
“They seemed such nice people;
who'd have thought it?”
Many averted their eyes in horror.
Of course, something had to be done,
with rampant inflation and profiteering,
“no smoke without fire”.
But these lynch mobs . . .
obviously one didn't condone such behaviour,
an ignorant minority,
most people were basically decent,
but their sense of outrage was very real.
The government should do something,
and probably would:
a firm hand was needed.
The politicians' voices were very muted,
(apart, that is, from those who had built their electoral success
upon precisely this hysteria),
and it could be political suicide
to identify one's self too closely
with an unpopular minority.
The religious leaders passed by
on the other side of the road.
One heard terrible stories
of what the victims had got up to
behind closed doors,
drinking the blood of babies,
and so forth.
If only a tenth of them were true. . .
And after all, they did murder Christ.
Presently, the authorities announced they finally had a solution
to the problem.
If we kept our windows closed
as tight as our minds,
then perhaps we could shut out
the stench from the crematoria
on the outskirts of town.
I awoke, choking and gagging,
gasping for breath,
relieved that it had only been a terrible dream.
Then I heard the crash of breaking glass.
Oh yes, the weirdos across the road.
Of course, I didn't believe everything I read in the tabloids,
but “no smoke without fire”, eh?
Pretty soon, the noise of breaking glass stopped,
and I turned over
and went back to sleep,
my nostrils twitching
only very slightly,
at the stench of smoke
creeping past the double-glazing,
and into my room.
Into my life.
August 5, 2000
