Oh yesteryear

I have been reading through my highschool and college writing journals.  My highschool journals seem to be mostly about how much I hated high school and that I was really ready to be done with that place.  My college journal, I suppose, I put more work and time into. (can't end a sentence with "into," oh well).

I will post here my first entry in my recently found, moldy and beaten up college writing journal:

"I heard about government funded witch hunts in Iryan Jaya and at the time, thought that they would be good fodder for stories.  But after a few weeks, the idea just died and didn't resurface.  They may not be as interesting as I first thought.  Or maybe I am just too lazy to think about it and write up a story.  Also, I don't know anything about Iryan Jaya; even if this is the right way to spell the country's name.  The picture of the man in the New York Times article looked rather upset and full of himself.  I don't know if I could get past that angry smug fellow to write a story about the whole thing.  I wouldn't be able to get past it.  The caption for the picture named the guy as the local witch finder and torturer.  He was quoted as being one of the main people responsible for the deaths of something like 100 witches.  The government, in the form of police groups, help out these witch hunters because they say that the accused witches are troublemakers.

They rip them apart, as I remember.  They rip the witches apart because if the witch is in pieces, his or her evil can not work anymore.  There was a story of a group of people running into an old woman's hut.  She was a healer but everyone she came to heal, died.  The people said she was a malicious old woman harboring evil spirits.  In a classic movie scene, the village people gathered and rioted around this woman's home and ripped her apart by hand while she still screamed for life.

I imagine a dark, moonless night and palm leaves brushing my skin as an observer.  The villagers are lit up by the torches they carry, yelling with twisted faces, running down the path towards a dilapidated little hovel.  The air is thick and hot.  Flying insects, stinging ones at that, are constant in the night air.  While running down the path, villagers unconsciously swat at mosquitoes and stinging flies while at the same time, avoiding the vegetation growing on the side.  Who knows what lives in the grass or what will jump out?  If these people are so afraid of witches and evil forces, they are definitely frightened of unseen dangers.

These people yell and mutilate out of fear; government supported fear.  That has to be one of the strangest parts to me.  I think the reason that witch hunter looks so full of himself is because, even though he's instigated riots and hundreds of murders, his government finds him in the right.  He stands with crossed arms and the slightest smile with angry brows.  He would be a great character in a story...if only I could get past the fact that he is real and the things he has done are real as well."