The Unacceptable Cost

Imagine having a global platform with command authority, power to back it up -

and pissing it away.

Not through defeat.

Through permission.

The machine is enormous.

Satellites orbit. Courts convene. Orders travel the planet in seconds.

The levers exist.

Peace. Food. Energy. Water. Truth.

Power sits there - real, heavy, waiting.

But the hand on the lever pretends the lever is not there.

Punishment still flows.

Punishment is easy.

It photographs well. It satisfies the crowd that wants someone blamed.

Sanctions. Arrests. Bombs.

The machine is very good at punishment.

Justice -

slower.

Justice requires repair.

Repair requires humility.

Humility rarely survives inside rooms built for authority.

So justice waits outside the building.

Meanwhile people die.

Not abstractly. Not statistically.

People.

A child under dust. A mother searching rubble. A father staring at a phone that will never ring again.

The numbers rise.

Each number a life that woke once believing the day would simply continue.

Far away the platform continues.

Statements issued. Panels convened. Resolutions drafted with careful language.

The dead do not read them.

In the pasture the wolf lowers its head.

Not hunting.

Grazing.

Teeth moving slowly through the grass while the herd nods and says

that must be how things work.

Someone suggests:

He seems strong.

Decisive.

Comfortable near the animals.

Maybe we should let him run the place.

Confidence resembles leadership when hunger wears a good suit.

So the wolf moves closer.

Closer to the gate. Closer to the platform. Closer to the controls.

Inside the chamber a basin sits.

One hand washes the other.

A favor here. A silence there.

You protect me. I protect you.

Water moves between palms

until the room is spotless.

Clean hands. Clean language. Clean statements.

Outside -

the ground fills with the dead.

Punishment continues.

Justice never arrives.

Because justice would break the arrangement.

Justice would ask why wolves manage the pasture.

Justice would ask why the platform refuses the lever that could stop the bleeding.

Power wasted is a strange grief.

Not the grief of defeat.

The grief of watching capacity sit idle

while life pours out of the world.

There is a word for that cost.

Unacceptable.

Not regrettable. Not unfortunate. Not tragic.

Unacceptable.

Because the power existed. Because the moment existed. Because the lives lost did not have to be lost.

History will write the quiet verdict:

They had the authority. They had the reach. They had the moment.

The cost was human life.

And still -

they pissed it away.