A Lone Gunman

Quote of the Day: " Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother:
it is murder."
-Leonard Cohen, "The Future"

At the tail-end of my middle school career, two shooters invaded Columbine High School only one state away.

Today, I'm nearing the tail-end of my undergrad career, and at Virginia Tech a "lone gunman" wreaked similar havoc. In the past hour or so the death toll has been raised to 32, more than twice the toll of the incident in Littleton.

The air feels still, cold and brisk, and even the softest sounds seem harsh and unwelcome. It's as if, yet again, something far too complex for me to ever understand has come to a head. The death toll rises, and here I am in New Mexico, away from the echoing gunshots, the dead and the wounded. But that death toll certainly resonates this far away, that heavy, dulling sensation of somebody else's unimaginable pain. Unimaginable but, apparently, horrifically possible.

In the past couple of years, these shootings seem to have increased in number (the Amish victims come to mind), and every time we attempt to find reasons. But by this point I don't think even CNN attempts to find reasoning. A "lone gunman," a "shooter" with a muddled statement. That's it--just a lone gunman, a man with a gun on a rampage.