Peace Comes Easily, a story written by my Mom.

Last month (January 2018) I discovered a story my Mother had written in her high school days.  There are so many emotions I had (and still do) as I found this gem. I lost my Mom about 9 years ago and there really isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of her.  The photo to the left is one that was taken a few few years before her passing. She was such an incredible woman... and I wish I'd taken advantage of learning more from her.

As a member of a Toastmasters club, I have a few speaking manuals saved up that I thought would be good to work through to develop my speaking skills further.

I presented this story for my first project in the Toastmasters Interpretive Reading Manual. Because of project constraints, I had to cut some out.  I've copied it here as she originally wrote it.   Hear me read it to my Toastmasters Club.


Peace Comes Easily – by Ann (Edsall) Randle

Ridiculous human beings, so blindly stupid, so easily led astray; chained in the shackles of a corrupt society which they themselves created. You’d think that after seventeen years I could get used to this, used to these creatures who consider themselves, above mere animals. After seventeen years I should be able to control the disgust that overwhelms me a thousand times a day, I should be able to face them without a wave of loathing enveloping me.  Men are such fools; they differ from animals only in that they are capable of killing more effectively and in that their motive for it is not self-preservation or for that matter any other God-given instinct, but greed, envy, jealousy, and innumerable other self-centered emotions that man has cultivated and nursed until they have become governing forces instead of hidden traits.

The worst of it, however, is that I am one of them, caught in a web I have no power over, tangled with the rest in the never-ending routine of humanity. Right now on my way to work, one drop in an endless stream washing through and around a sprawling metropolis, If only my prayers would be answered, if only I could escape to be alone. Perhaps some day God will answer and I’ll be free.

“Damn cabbies!”  

“Hey buddy, get that hack out’a the way. What do you think this is, a parking lot?”  

“Wish the light would change, getting tired of hearing that kid bawl in the next car.”

They think I’m crazy. I’ve heard them whisper behind my back. They call me insane because they fear me.  When I enter a room they all turn and stare as though my detesting them is a form of magnetism that draws their eyes and thoughts towards mine. I wonder what they would say if they knew why I hold them in such contempt. I wonder what they would do if they knew what I had witnessed seventeen years ago in the old country, how they would act and feel if they had seen as I did, the murder of my parents. I had been happy before I discovered what people were really like, down inside, happy until I was twelve and the revolution came.  My friends started playing war instead of ball and neighbors became suspicious of each other and always carried guns with a hard glitter in their eyes. I had lived with my parents then, in a small, clean house with an iron picket fence around it.  I was secure until tha day during the revolution when a man with a grudge against my father spread the lie to our friends that my father secretly was one of the hated, a spy. I was playing when the mob came and in violent rage, tore my parents from the house. When I found them, they were dead, impaled on the iron picket fence. All because humans make such stupid mistakes.

And so, my thoughts flew, the thoughts of one Vaugn Zapata. I was a man on my way through a typically smoggy day in one of our country’s larger cities. A man haunted and tortured by the worst of the many weaknesses I denounced my fellow men for, hate.  Brakes were screaming, the whistles, the horns, and sidewalk peddlers trying to drown each other out. Action was impulsive, sudden, and yet continual, the action of a city. As usual I became impatient, then bored with the traffic. My interest strayed to the many signs and billboards that perched on tops of buildings, on corners, and almost every other available space. My gaze chanced to fall on a sign I’d seen before, in other places.  It read, “Pray for Peace, October 3.”  Tall black letters which abruptly switched my thoughts to a new pattern.

Pray for peace, indeed. I remember when they first started that campaign back in ’85.  “Give us fifteen years,” they screamed, “and we can find and make believers out of the last savages on the face of the earth.” Big men, big words, but I guess they backed them up. There isn’t a non-believer living today, with the exception of me. And now they’re going to carry out the second part of their plan.  On October third, everyone everywhere will pray for peace at midnight. It’s really the funniest joke in the history of the world.

Fools! Why doesn’t it dawn on them that there can be no true peace as long as they persist in their human stupidities? They think peace comes easily, all you have to do is get together and pray a little. However, I’ll say one thing for them, they have tried a new approach, they’re going to pray unselfishly for a change. I wonder who wrote the original prayer. Heaven knows it’s been plastered all over so everyone will use the same words.

“Lord, Father of all, I lift my voice in a universal prayer. I would ask you to bless all nations and peoples of the world with a lasting peace. If in anyway the sacrifice of my life would help bring this peace, then I offer it freely; thinking as I do so that it is a meager exchange. Amen.”

Hah! I will pray too, but not to die for peace.  What good is it when it’s enjoyed only by others after you are dead. I’ll pray for the tranquility that comes to only those who are completely isolated from the human race.

Slowly the days of the calendar fell, with every form of communication, almost every voice, almost every pen, pushing the time toward October third. Through the weeks, whole cities and nations began to prepare for the single goal, to pray for peace. Church attendance tripled and the crime rate dropped to nearly nothing. And throughout this great movement, I remained aloof and scornful while observing entire races with cold contempt. I was a forgotten man.

Finally, the day cam and was declared an international holiday. No one worked except those who deal directly or indirectly with communication or the church. The day itself was overcast; a drizzle fell slowly and just enough to make things dull and uncomfortable. For me, alone in my apartment, the light hours were ones of boredom for which only late evening brought relief when I decided to go for a walk. I enjoyed the city at night, the lights. The color, the noise. But tonight, the city was strangely dark and quiet. The streets were still wet from the afternoon’s rain. A damp wind blew the smog in swirls around my feet. There wasn’t any real sky that night, just a big emptiness where it should have been. Something hung in the air, something that whispered around the buildings and lurking in the dark, waited, expectant. I shrugged, trying to dispel the feeling of complete loneness which enveloped me. From somewhere near, a clock struck twelve. The ringing tone vibrated off brick, blacktop, glass, and metal for a long time, dying at last. I began to shake, to tremor, whether from nervousness, a chill, or fear, I did not know. Even as I started to walk then run towards home, I realized that everyone in the world was praying, everyone but me. It was midnight, time to raise the plea for peace. Panic seized me. Words tumbled from my mouth.

“Don’t leave me, I don’t want to be alone. Let me pray with you. I’m sorry, oh God, I’m sorry. I didn’t know, I didn’t know what it was like to be completely alone!”

I stumbled up the stairs fumbling for my key, and then half staggered into the room. Sobbing, I fell to my knees, praying fervently, desperately.

The sun came up, flooding the room with light. I had fallen into a fitful, restless sleep on the floor after hours of praying. I awoke with a start. Feeling sore and tired, I decided what I needed was strong, black coffee. When I entered the small kitchenette, I first noticed it, the horrible quiet. Just as I had the night before it began to possess me. There was nothing, no sound but my own breathing which grew steadily heavier, which started coming faster. Sudden fright gripped me as I ran from my room yelling, screaming for someone to hear and yell back. I charged down the stairs, stumbling as I went, and out the doors still crying out in fear. The streets were deserted, no voice could be heard. Abruptly I stopped, stopped screaming and running.

I knew finally, knew what I should have known the night before, what I should have guessed. But I was too late. They had prayed for peace, they prayed to die for it. Their prayers were answered, they were all dead! I had been wrong, peace does come easily if only you know how.

While standing there in the street, it struck me funny and I began to laugh, a low chuckle at first, but it built up and became wild, hysterical.