Let Him Live, Lord

 [An older Creative Coven composition]

"You like the idea of being able to dismiss him as just garbage,

unworthy of life, don't you?"

"I'm just being realistic. You're the one romanticizing him as

some kind of wonderful guy who was deprived of the opportunity

to make the world such a better place, when he was just another

thug."

"He was nineteen years old and neither you nor I have any idea

what he might have done with his life. You're just trying to

make excuses for the fact that you don't want to stick a crowbar

in your heart and care that a human being was killed without any

good reason. How can you care so little that a human life was

snuffed out so carelessly by the people who are supposed to

prevent that sort of thing?"

"How can you care so much? What is this guy to you? You never

met him, he's not your damn cousin or something."

"Yeah, I think that's what's really at the root of this whole

disagreement between you and me. You just don't care about

people outside of a narrow circle, and you think I'm either

pretending to care or actually crazy when I look further."

"That's not true. I care about people. I volunteer. I donate.

But you do get kind of weird over people sometimes, and I don't

get it."

"That pretty much describes how I see you. When you talk about a

human being like he's a bug to be stepped on, that strikes me as

weird, and I don't get you."

"So what would you want for this guy?"

"I'd want for him and everybody who meets a cop in an ordinary

encounter to live, just to live. Is that asking so much?

The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Evidently."