Image, Event

October of this year, we visited the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. This painting by Howard Pyle gripped my attention. With a sheer force, it thrust my imagination to the horror of the situation. At arm's length, these men are facing each other. Another man of flesh and blood. Horses neighing, alarmed by the clamor, perhaps injured already by whips of terrified master and sharp bayonets of master's enemies. At this proximity, these men perhaps see their enemies' eyes, face. How do they lift their sharp swords or pointed bayonets and shove it into another man's throat or chest or belly? Whoever plants the sword to another's chest must be numb with an overwhelming force. The stabbed one must be terrified as the darkness replaces the light of life. Those who have not yet planted a sword or been stabbed must be scared, terrified, uncertain. This is a feeling of undescribable anguish, horror and terror. 

It is an image that incites an imagination about the event. 

In the past few days, the world has been subjected to an event, that incites an even terrifying image of horror. A young woman in Delhi is lured into a bus along with her boyfriend. Six men assault them with iron rods, rape the girl, and throw them out of the bus stripped naked and unconscious. We learn today that the girl died.  

Who are these men? These six men. How did they decide they will take a bus down the road, lure a woman, rape her, and kill her? What must have happened in that bus? Six lustful evils preying upon a woman. There must have been shrieks, cries, moans. How did these evils' eyes look when they impaled the  helpless woman's belly with an iron rod? This is an image of horror, pure horror.