The Chosen

CONCLUSION: FRAGMENT I

The woman who still does not know that hell is waiting around the corner is walking briskly along the pavement. Snow is falling from the dark sky, settling like the frozen tears of angels on her head and shoulders. She is carrying a violin case. It has been a long day, and she wants to get home.

Home to her family.

To her sleeping children and to her husband, who is waiting with wine and pizza.

Perhaps she even feels a sense of peace, because a drama that has been going on for a long time seems to have reached its conclusion. Only now is she aware of how much it has been weighing her down. Being able to put it behind her will change so much.

She strides out, speeding up as she gets closer to home. It is time to allow herself to rest. To recover. Gather her strength.

She can’t wait, and starts to walk even faster.

And then she hears it. The sound that slices through the winter silence and hits her like a hammer blow.

Screaming sirens, blue lights. The engines roar as they catch up with her and race past.

And suddenly she knows where they are going.

To her home.

She runs faster than she has ever done before. She runs for her life as she moves towards death. Her footsteps are silent in the snow, her breath is like thick smoke. She rounds the last corner and sees the blue lights pulsating against the neighbouring buildings. There are people everywhere. Men and women in uniform, on the pavement and on the road. Loud voices, agitated expressions. Someone is openly weeping, and someone else yells at a driver, telling him to fucking park somewhere else.

Then they catch sight of her.

She is a freight train hurtling down a straight track; no one can stop her. Someone makes a futile attempt but misses her by a millimetre. She hurls herself through the open door of the building and races up the stairs.

And that is where she stops.

She slams into another body and she falls down. She tries to get up but is pinned down by arms that think they are stronger than a mother under threat.

‘You can’t go in there right now. You just need to wait a little…’

But she will not wait. She doesn’t even understand how it happens, but she takes him down with a single blow to the crotch, gets to her feet and carries on running. She hears his voice echoing through the stairwell:

‘She got away! Stop her!’

Soon she has reached the top of the stairs. Soon she is standing outside her own door. Soon she will find out what has happened.

That her husband and her children are dead.

That there is no one left.

She will stand in silence on the threshold of the room where they are lying, observe the frantic activity going on around them in an attempt to save whatever can be saved, in spite of the fact that it is too late. That is how all those present will remember the scene.

They will remember her standing in silence in the doorway, with snow on her coat, and a violin case in her hand.