Heirs of The Gulag

Recently, my belief that human beings are so "complexed" that sometimes (perhaps often) they retain a certain god complex, was confirmed once more.

"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio!"

It is after all, a new, designer age where vicariousness and even occasional viciousness sparks curiosity and possibilities as never known or imagined before.  Who cares about the world, family or real neighbors anymore when one has such outlets (or inlets), such . . . dreams?

This morning after a devotional reading wherein the following sentence spoke to me, in particular, "In the end, reconciliation and peace will come about through lineage," I quickly grabbed my yellowing copy of Victor Herman's book, Coming Out of the Ice, off the shelf and read:

"I heard an unbelievable scream. It was the first time I had heard anything like it. It was the kind of scream you imagine a woman makes in childbirth. It was a scream like that, not hysterical, but a more stupendous howl of exquisite agony with relief mixed into it. I looked up. The guard said, "Head down." I waited. I tried to decide where that scream had come from. What had made it - man or woman? It was that kind of scream - beyond gender - but a perfectly human sound . . ."

And finally:

"I was never again to hear anything like this - that one transfigured scream - and on either side of it silence, a perfect silence."

Munche's "The Scream" - Heirs afoot?

The etymology for the word heirs, the subject of this reflection, is interesting.

According to the Merriam -Webster dictionary online:
"akin to Greek chēros bereaved

Date: 13th century"

In the 21st century, it seems that screams of the transfiguring sort are just about everywhere one willingly (or forcibly) travels "on either side of [the] silence."

Gulags, yet abound.
They belong to us all.

Later . . .