Black Thoughts from Black Tuesday

Tuesday was an unusually eventful day, especially for here where nothing usually happens on a daily basis and twice on Sunday. It started early in the morning when two of the dog boys discovered that their fighting cocks had been stolen from their perches just outside the kennel. Shortly after that another of the dog boys reported that someone had thrown salt bread rolls (pan de sal, which would be the national bread if there were one, and perhaps it is) into the big dogs’ kennel which is a few meters behind the main kennel, at the back of the lot. There appeared to be some white granules inserted into the bread and the dog boy, Richard, said that it looked like something that is put into septic tanks and that could be used to make the dogs dizzy and prevent them from barking. Then, shortly after that, several of the Cocker Spaniels in the main kennel began to have seizures within minutes after drinking water. Alerted by the previous anomalies the dog boys immediately pulled all of the water from the cages.
The dogs drink filtered water and because the water runs slowly through the filter, the dog boys let it run into a plastic drum and take the water from there. They discovered that there was a chlorine smell from the water in the plastic drum and I noted that it was not present in the water coming directly from the filter, leading to the reasonable conclusion that something had been put into the water in the drum. Junko got samples of water from both sources plus a bit of the tainted bread. She took these to the veterinarian, along with the one dog who had been most affected. She was advised to take the specimens to the Bureau of Food and Drugs in Manila. On arriving she was told that they did not do lab tests there. She was referred to another place which also did not do lab tests. After wasting most of the day she brought the specimens back to the vet, who took them to another lab in Manila yesterday. They are charging about $100 to run tests but, canny fellows, will not release the results until they have the money in their hands. That is where things stand at the moment.
So it appears that someone came though the back of the property, fed tainted bread to the big dogs to distract them from barking, went around to the front, entered the unlocked kennel and placed something in the water drum, then stole the cocks on his/their way out. Or perhaps someone from the kennel did all this, stealing the cocks to make it look like an outsider. I find myself getting really paranoid in situations like this.
Junko has been receiving obscene and insulting text messages for several years, presumably from an extremely disturbed former rival in the show ring who is a teaching psychiatrist’s dream case, having transferred his hatred of his mother onto Junko as well as projecting onto her his own devious, vicious and unscrupulous behavior. These text messages have become increasingly threatening. We suspect that he is the instigator behind this event and others, although it would be difficult to prove anything in a court of law.
It has more than once occurred to me that it costs less to have someone killed here than we spend on dog food every month. I wish it were more expensive – the cost of hiring a killer, not the dog food - so that I would have more of a deterrence to actually going through with it. As things stand now, it’s too easy. And I wonder at times if a good attorney could make a strong case for self-defense or defense of family in a situation like this, assuming I chose to have the pleasure of euthanizing this pathetic creature, personally taking him out of his miserable life. Of course at this point these are only idle thoughts, fantasies indulged in to ease frustration. (If I had serious thoughts about killing him, would I be writing about it here?) This wretched piece of humanity is more to be pitied than hated. Far more frequent than thoughts of doing him in are the feelings of gratitude that I am not him, living in the world that he has created. He lives in a world that mirrors his own ethics, morals and conduct but he truly believes that what he sees is “out there,” not the reflection of his own thoughts and fears. It must be a kind of Hell without possibility of release.
Although I am not really considering killing anyone, still I am troubled by all this. Under what circumstances would I consider the unthinkable? Mohatma Ghandi said, “There are causes for which I would give my life but there are no causes for which I would take a life.” I’m not Ghandi. From time to time, especially early in the morning when sleep evades me, I have wondered how I would react if the threats continued or increased and now I have this incident. Like most parents and spouses I hope that I would have the courage to give my life to save any of my family or, echoes of Lord Jim, to react instantly and automatically to take the bullet. I am willing to spend the rest of my life in prison to insure their safety. If there were no other way to protect them, would I, could I, actually deliberately kill someone? It’s easy to contemplate in the abstract but if the moment came, with real specifics of place and person, situation and circumstance, would I act? I’m pretty sure that in a moment of rage I could, and that frightens me. But to kill someone deliberately, coldly, by reasoned intent? (Ten years after the event, I still feel remorse over the death of a dog from heat stroke while I was walking him. What makes me think that I could cause the death of a person?) What would it take to push me over the line between idle speculation and actual planning, to bridge the gap between thought and action? These are my thoughts, these specters that haunt the dark hours of the morning and the dark recesses of my mind. So now I will give you something to fill those hours. What would it take to push you over the line?
Even in paradise, it seems, there is a snake in the grass.
God bless
D