Ancient Legacies Unleashed

Have you ever watched and heard a person die, while blood oozed from his mouth and from bullet holes in his chest, as he gasped his final painful breaths through a perforated windpipe?

When I’m lying in the dark in bed at night with my eyes closed, and there is nothing to distract me, I can see the red blood flowing, like hot lava, and can hear his hopeless raspy gasps.  I can even smell the gun smoke and my own sweat if I concentrate hard enough.

If you haven’t witnessed such a horrifying event yourself, was there some other excruciating experience which shattered your youthful innocence and catapulted you into the full reality of adulthood?

My life-altering episode occurred just two months ago, and I have yet to reach my nineteenth birthday.

It all began when I arrived in Atlanta to begin my college experience.  I was full of excitement and anticipation and anxious to start this next phase of my life.  I expected to be challenged by many things as a beginning freshman, but had no way of foreseeing that, before the end of my second semester, I would be drawn into a succession of murders, culminating in the gruesome death which still haunts me.

My first class, History of Western Civilization, began at ten o’clock on a hot and humid Wednesday morning in late August.  I took two wrong turns before finding the classroom, but managed to slide into a seat just before Dr. James Chambers entered.  He looked like a model from a Ralph Lauren commercial with his wavy brown hair and angular face.  He was wearing a lightweight blue blazer which fit perfectly over a white golf shirt and well-pressed khaki pants.  He appeared to be a little over six feet and stood confidently as he neatly printed his name, e-mail address, phone number, office location and office hours on the white board at the front of the room.

There seemed to be about forty students in the class.  Sunlight streamed in through the bank of large windows on my left, creating the illusion of warmth in the colorless classroom.  The concrete block walls were painted beige and the tile floor was a milk-chocolate brown.  A world map and a map of the Middle East were pulled down from their holders like old-fashioned window shades and covered parts of the white board.  The room certainly wouldn’t have won any interior design awards, but I liked the feel of it.

Professor Chambers strode closer to the students in the front row, smiled warmly and paused.  The soft sounds of murmuring voices and shuffling backpacks ceased in anticipation of his next move.