{"id":494,"date":"2012-07-20T01:28:43","date_gmt":"2012-07-20T06:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rickspicscorner.com\/blog\/?p=494"},"modified":"2012-07-21T23:11:57","modified_gmt":"2012-07-22T04:11:57","slug":"the-audience-of-souls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/the-audience-of-souls\/","title":{"rendered":"The Audience of Souls"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What do you say to the dead?
\nWill you forgive me for living?<\/p>\n

– Ronnie James Dio (1992)<\/p>\n

There is a darkness here
\nYou cannot imagine you cannot fathom
\nIt speaks to me in tongues
\nCan you hear it?<\/p>\n

I’ve built my tower of song
\nFrom words as bitter splintered bone
\nGnarled and wretched, spiteful and harsh
\nI’ve cursed the vermin, the vermin of the earth
\nI’ve wished pestilence upon the foul and weak
\nNot just men, but women and children too
\nWith a rusted blade across their throats<\/p>\n

– AA Nemetheanga (2005)<\/p>\n

The memorial meant to heal sometimes has the opposite effect.\u00a0 It causes feelings of sadness and darkness that are somewhat palpable.\u00a0 On seeing this memorial I felt a darkness and an ill-ease of a wound that isn’t going to heal.\u00a0 The chairs, meant to represent the victims of this vicious attack, are set to face a reflecting pool that soothes the wounds.\u00a0 Soothing, however, is not healing.\u00a0 The water is only an analgesic as you traverse the great distance between 9:01 and 9:03.\u00a0 This ensures that the wound remains, forever if it is deemed necessary.<\/p>\n

Part of the healing is the ability to commune with those victims, to feel the pain they felt as they were taken from us in a singular act of evil.\u00a0 However, this is not to be.\u00a0 The chairs facing the water are separated from the living.\u00a0 We are not allowed to go up to the chairs and view what the victims are viewing, to feel their pain and take it in as our own.\u00a0 The living can only face the chairs.\u00a0 The chairs face the living as an audience waiting for those living souls to explain their continued existence.\u00a0 Their judgement is affected by the wounds that are soothed, yet forever open.<\/p>\n

I pray for those souls lost in that great act of evil, and will hope that we can one day heal this scar inherited from a madman.\u00a0 I pray that one day they can find peace and that the living can also find peace.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do you say to the dead? Will you forgive me for living? – Ronnie James Dio (1992) There is a darkness here You cannot imagine you cannot fathom It speaks to me in tongues Can you hear it? I’ve built my tower of song From words as bitter splintered bone Gnarled and wretched, spiteful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[30],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":499,"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions\/499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artistrichardcuster.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}