Hate (a story of fiction)

Daniel felt happy as he walked with his young wife and two small children. 

Strolling ahead of his family, along the cliff top, he gazed out over the ocean and marveled at its beauty: a vast expanse of sapphire blue sparkling in the sunlight.

The path he followed provided an equally glorious view of rolling hills and verdant farmland.  It was late spring and flowers splashed colour across the grassy fields:  reds and oranges and yellows. Majestic eucalypts dotted the landscape and, between their branches, birds swooped and darted and chirped.  Overhead, the sky was clear and blue and endless. 

The day was warm, but not hot.  A soft breeze blew at intervals, tussling Daniel's hair and caressing his face.  

Daniel drank in the charms of the world around him.  He soaked in the beauty and the happiness of his family and his life.  As he walked, he closed his eyes, for a moment, so that he might feel nature about him even more acutely:  the sounds, the warmth, the golden-pinkness of light as it filtered through his lids.  

Walking, in this way, he suddenly felt his right foot slide on the gravel of the path.  His foot slipped down the edge of the cliff, gliding without resistance across the loose stones and rocks.  He felt his body begin to fall. 

Instinctively, he swung his arms about.  He was desperate to grab anything which might save his life.  Unfortunately, there was nothing.  His arms found nothing …   

As he continued to stumble and slide, he soon realised that he had passed the point where he might hope to recover his footing and his position up on the path.  He knew, then, that he would fall to his death.  There was nothing left for him to do.

Sharp rocks cut into his knees and stabbed at his arms and  hands as he fell. His vision was a blur of blue and grey.  Sky, water and rocks flashed before him as he tumbled downward.  He could make no sound.  It all happened so fast … and yet so slowly.  

When he had fallen a few meters,  he felt a jolt as his  legs struck a solid piece of earth  jutting from the face of the cliff.  Branches and dirt and rock - broke his fall. It was only a tiny ledge with a straggly bush growing from it.   But Daniel grabbed and clutched desperately at the branches and leaves. He held on with all the strength he could muster.  His knuckles were white with his grip.  His body was tense. He was almost too scared to breath.  He kept as still as he could.  Only his mind was racing.    

He had been given a short reprieve from death.  He knew that the ledge and the bush  wouldn't hold him for long.  A few minutes, maybe.  But long enough for him to think about what he could do next.    

As he stood flat up against the rock-wall of the cliff, his feet clinging, within his sandals, to the tiny ledge, his heart pounding in his chest, he became aware that his wife was calling to him from the top of the cliff - a few meters above his head.

'Daniel!' she screamed.  'Daniel, hold on!  Someone's coming! There's someone coming!  He's running up the hill, Daniel!  I think he's come to help.  Hold on!'

Daniel could feel his feet begin to slip from the ledge.  He heard cracking sounds as  the thin branches of the bush began to give way under his weight.  Perspiration dripped from his forehead and into his eyes.  He looked down beyond his sandals. He watched the waves  crashing and foaming on the rocks far below him.  He knew that he was looking down towards his death.  He could imagine his body breaking like a fragile egg when he hit the rocks.

His wife called out again, 'Daniel!'

He looked up, grateful for the distraction from the terror waiting for him below.  He could see someone standing next to his wife.  It was a man. He was young and tall and solidly built.  He carried a thick yellow rope looped around and over his shoulder. 

The man called down to Daniel.  'I can help you!' he said.  'This rope is strong enough for me to pull you up!  I've tied a loop in the end.  You can put your foot into the loop!  I'll pull you up!'

Daniel felt overwhelmed with relief.  He might be saved.  He might live to see his children grow up.  He might live to finish his life with his dear wife.  He couldn't believe his luck.  He knew that without this stranger he would die. His wife and children would never have been able to pull him up from below the edge of the cliff.  Even if they were in possession of a rope.  Which they weren't.   He was enormously grateful to this man for helping him. 

The young man threw the rope down to Daniel.  Daniel tied the rope around his waist and then he put his foot into the loop made in the end of it.  As he did so the last piece of tiny ledge gave way.  Daniel's life was now entirely dependent on the rope… and the kind young man who was saving him.

Looking up at the cliff top, Daniel  smiled to his wife and his young children who were watching as he was being pulled to safety.  They cheered him on and encouraging him to keep going.  

Daniel's gaze then shifted to the young man who was rescuing him.  The stranger groaned, intermittently, as he pulled with all of his strength, in his efforts to bring Daniel back to his family. He was a large and muscular young man.  Daniel thought that he either lifted weights at the gym frequently, or he was engaged in work which kept him very fit and strong.  He wore jeans and a green woollen jumper.  His hair was blond and cut short.  His skin was tanned.  He had a kind and determined face.

As Daniel neared the top of the cliff, on the cusp of safety, he became aware that the young man rescuing him had blue eyes.  

Daniel gasped.  He felt a tight band clamp around his head - like a vice. He felt the muscles within his limbs and in his face stiffen.  He felt physically sick.  He thought that he might even vomit.  He began to hyperventilate and he felt his heart racing again.  Rage filled every fibre of his being. 

This man who was rescuing him ... had blue eyes!  Daniel had one hate in the world.  He was generally a reasonable person. Yet, there was one thing that he hated beyond reason itself.  One thing that he detested and had done so for as long as he could remember.  And that one thing - which filled him with such hate and fury that he found it hard to control himself - was blue-eyed people. 'Blue-scum' - he called them.  The scourge of humanity.  Disgusting, vile, filthy rodents!   

His whole family, as he grew up, hated any person with  blue eyes.  It was a well-know fact, known to Daniel and all of his friends and family and school class-mates and work colleagues:  blue-eyed people were sub-human.  Blue-eyed people were stupid, untrustworthy, filthy, thieving maggots.  Worse than rats.  Daniel often said that he could live with rats - but never could he live anywhere near 'blue-scum'.

If Daniel ever found himself near to anyone with blue eyes he would punch them.  Just like that.  He'd grab a bat or a rock or anything that might do the most damage - and he'd hit them as hard as he could.  Everyone he knew did that.  They were doing the world a favour;  running the disgusting and sub-human 'blue-scum'  out of town.  The world would be better if they were all dead! Fact!

His favourite joke was:  'What do you call a thousand blue-eyed people at the bottom of the ocean?  A good start! '

Now a blue eyed person, a piece of 'blue-scum,' was saving his life!

Daniel felt revulsed …and  confused.  

He wasn't sure that he could live a life which had been saved by a blue-eyed person.  He didn't think that he could ever be happy again - knowing that his life was indebted to a piece of dirty scum with blue eyes.  

He looked again at his wife and children.  Their brown and green eyes were filled with love for him.  They were smiling and laughing and encouraging him - as he came near to the top of the cliff - and safety.

He looked again at the young man with blue eyes. He wondered if he could live with the cognitive dissonance created by hating his saviour? Alternatively, he wondered if he  might ever relinquish his hatred of people with blue eyes? 

Disappointment and sadness swept through him. Daniel was in no doubt about the answer. He inched his foot from the loop in the rope as he watched the faces of his wife and children - still hopeful and happy. 

His hands shook and tears filled his eyes as he untied the rope from around his waist.  He loosened his grip on the rope.  

It pained him to see the expressions on the faces of his family change to anguish and horror. He heard his wife scream.  He heard his children's voices desperately calling out to him: 'Daddy! Daddy...' 

He let go of the rope.

As he plummeted to his death … he screamed out his last words before he hit the rocks: 'Filthy blue-scum!'

Daniel had managed to preserve his most valued possession: his hatred.  

Everything else he had lost...

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Firstly - I have blue eyes!  Clearly that's not the point of the story.  If you don't believe me - I have my photo on my blog site now.  My eyes are as blue as the sky.

People can hate anything and anybody. 

They can hate and teach their children to hate.  They can teach hatred in schools and act it out through violence and intolerance and death: their own and their community's and their country's and the death of other people. 

The hate can extend to people they don't even know personally.  It is not personal.  It is irrational and blinding hate. 

The 'eye-colour' scenario is derived from the famous exercise by the American school teacher, Jane Elliot, which she performed on third-grade school children - following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.  (You might like to Google it)

As I have said many times, it is my belief that we are souls with bodies - rather than bodies with souls.  A kind and loving soul is where true beauty lies. Regardless of all the other stuff  about us physically or in our politics or in our religions.

My topic is hate.  A strong negative emotion which often results in behaviour which is destructive and cruel.

Intellectual ideas - cause people to think and discuss.

Emotional ideas lead people to act.  Negatively or positively - depending on the nature of the emotion.  Love or hate or fear and so on …

My short story was inspired by the horrible image of hatred demonstrated in a photograph on the front page of my newspaper - The Australian - yesterday. The image has shocked and repulsed the civilised world - as was evidenced by the extensive discussions it generated on social media and the call to action (typical of emotional topics and ideas) it generated amongst politicians and media identities and many civilised people who were so appalled by it. And rightly so!

The image was of an Australian little boy - aged about seven years - holding the severed and blackened head of a decapitated young man.  The little boy was so small that he required two hands to hold the head.  He stood smiling at the camera while his father took the photo and then uploaded the image onto his twitter account.

The details of why and who and how of such an event could never justify it.  Like any form of abuse (and this is atrocious abuse on many levels - not just of the murdered young man but of the small young boy forced to hold the severed head) - there is never any excuse or explanations which could vindicate it.  None. Not in any way.

I have been a doctor for over 25 years and it is my experience that most people are good and kind.  I have found, after treating tens of thousands of people from many different demographics and races - love is overwhelmingly more prevalent than hate. I am constantly inspired by the kindness and goodness of people.

There are endless examples of bravery and noble acts of love and kindness.  One example was when the  bomb exploded at the Boston marathon.  Video footage was shown to the world, on social media, of an act of hatred followed by love and kindness - as many people ran toward the danger - to help.  These brave and loving people risked their own lives in order to help other people - regardless of whether or not they knew any of the people they ran to help.  

Hate is a choice.  Hate is a waste of one's life.  Hate is misery, darkness, anger, ugliness, disrespect, destructive.

Love is also a choice.  Love is hope, peace, happiness, joy, warmth, respectful, giving.  

If a metaphor for hate is fire: destructive and ruthless and deadly; then a metaphor for love is water:  reparative and soothing and vital to life.  

Fire might be loud and intimidating and violent - while water is more often quiet and gentle and unobtrusive.  Yet when one meets the other - water will always overcome fire - just as love will eventually overcome and extinguish hate.  

The brave and loving people in the world, now and through history, have made it so.

Love is quietly stronger.  I think an understanding of this brings hope and  inspiration to all of us reeling from the terrible and hateful events which have unfolded in the world in recent times.

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If you found this story helpful or interesting - please share it with others.  I hope they may find it interesting and a topic worth thinking about.