Timora Jackson wants to write to the President A sketch for the Way of the Cross
1.
Timora Jackson decided to write to the American President. She said she wouldn't want to wait for another coffin to be flown from the death-zone before she writes. She is among eleven grieving women, wearing tears as earrings or necklaces and shrouded in black who form part of the Militia of Military Mothers. Timora Jackson has an obsessive dream: she gets a call to identify the corpse of her son killed to honour the President's mission and then she's given a hero's award. She dreams of Stan, her son, all stitched up and made up with a rosy complexion and claret lips.
2.
Yesterday the Military invited Timora Jackson to contact her son via webcam on his 21st birthday. The Military wanted to give her a present, compliments of the state. Talking to her son through the camera, Mrs Jackson grabbed the edge of her chair. In an interview she declared she didn't want Stan to see that deep down she was crying. She had been taught to be strong for the State and the Flag.
3.
Timora Jackson found her son's diary, full of unfinished poems for Debbie, the cat, the butterflies in the garden and the lavender buds, fantasy, the sun and the snow: „I've got to leave/ i'm going to lubricate my fingers/ for the trigger/ don't know if they'll ask me be a flame or an assassin/ or a guide without maps/ or a spy or a grave digger/ or a decoy for a spectacular human bomb.”
4.
All alone Timora Jackson can give in to tears. However, she still wants to write to the President.
She'd tell him his mission is the prayer of death. Timora Jackson wants to tell him she's already witnessed eleven mourning mothers dressed in black receive a coffin, a cross and a certificate. Her wish is not to have to parade her intimate and trembling lavender garland should Stan's body come back from the zone of death. Her desire is that when she kisses him again he won't be as rigid and cold as the tank's metal frame.
5.
Timora Jackson wants to write to the American President. She wants to tell him that she doesn't like his walk and his smile and the way he sanctions the death of the Military Mother's children. She'd tell him she doesn't like the way he talks and how he waves at history as he models for photographers. She'd tell him she doesn't like his speeches on freedom when this drills deep wounds in the brains of those left behind to walk in funerals. She'd tell him nobody knows how her son had been enlisted and that she doesn't know if he had got the webcam message or if he's writing more poetry amidst the fire and butchered limbs blown all over the place.
6.
Timora Jackson, your average citizen, would simply like to write a letter to the American President.
She's going to write it at the kitchen table with the smell of potatoes and cabbages, with the smell of the rain muddying the window. She'd write it before going to bed to dream the same soiled dream. And she'd do her utmost for her eyes not to fill up with tears as she's writing.
7.
Timora Jackson is determined. She'll write as soon as her brain becomes saturated with more news from embedded journalists. She wants to write to the President of the United States of America as soon as she starts deciphering the language of collateral collisions and kamikaze bombers. She'd tell him to recall her son. She'd tell him she doesn't give a damn for the recipes of patriotism, occupation plans and oil wells in a strange country she hadn't known it existed. She'd tell him the flag isn't unfurling and blowing in her heart: the stripes remind her of the rows of coffins and the stars make her think of the explosions that unpick her dreams. She'd tell the President of the USA to give an order for Stan to come back bacause he had left poetry at home in the diary he forgot to take with him to hell. She'd tell him her son Stan had left Debbie, the cat and the lavender pots behind.
Mario Azzopardi.