The video links begin to appear on my Twitter timeline, each labeled “graphic content.” I click them open, one by one. Each clip introduces more names, more bodies wrapped in bloodied blankets, more bruised faces, with open eyes, forever frozen in their shocked expressions. Haunting wails in the background while a commentator narrates death, never forgetting to authenticate the video with the details, the name, the time, the place, the date, because even in these final, sacred moments, when they should be saying goodbye to their dead, they have to prove that this is real for the rest of the world.
Though we’ve learned the era of silence is over, nights like tonight leave you speechless, without words. Or words that are not like words. Words that are physically felt, like a chest tightened with dread or burning eyes depleted of tears. Words that cannot express what the wailing minarets of Homs’ mosques sound like; the language of desperation is universal. When towers of stone scream and weep, we have reached the limit of words.
