A Terrible Seed

The thing I remember most is the cadence of drums.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Rolllllll, Boom. Boom. Boom. Rolllllll, Boom. Boom. Boom. Rolllllll, Boom. Boom Ba-Boom.

Thousands of drumbeats, as the procession slowly made its way through the capital. It is burned into my memory, as I sat for hours in front of the TV watching this overwhelming death ritual with the wide-open and unfiltered acceptance of an eight year old. 

In the silences between each cadence, only the sound of horses' hooves.

It is always there whenever I contemplate this watershed event, that sound. Stark. Solemn. Ominous.

Flashes of visual memory – the riderless horse, boots backwards in stirrups. The flag-draped coffin on a horses-drawn hearse.  The mourners, walking behind, led by a woman swathed in black.

I did not understand then, but this is what I know now.

Whatever potential for greatness existed (or did not exist) was snuffed out in an instant, gone. The future, altered beyond comprehension. The truth that lay behind the act, unknowable, beyond one simple fact.

Lee Harvey Oswald was an apocalyptic gardener, and he sowed a terrible seed.