LET’S PONDER – By Capt Elmo Jayawardena

The Parade was fearsome.

Men in combat fatigues

Monster missiles being loaded to multi-wheeled flat-bed vehicles

Stern-faced soldier drivers crawling in armored cars that were pulling them.

Jungle green battle tanks came one after the other, the caterpillar tracks biting the tarred road. The Captains with head-phones popped out of their metal canopies and stood on high alert.

SAMs pointed to empty skies and then fighter jets came roaring from nowhere in tight formation and did almost vertical climbs with their after-burners spitting fire impressing the onlookers.

This was military power at its destructive best, showing off to bystanders and TV cameras to frighten the world.

Someone coughed, soft and hidden, another joined, and the coughing spread like a weed-clogged wave.

There was almost a stampede, panic-stricken people ran, on the road, along the sidewalk, anywhere there was room to run. The parade stopped. Mothers carrying children and fathers dragging sons, they all ran everywhere. Some who were parading left their mighty vehicles and started running. The stampede finally took everyone.

The fighter jets returned, this time beautifying the sky with their coloured smoke trails. 

There was no one to watch the rainbow display, everybody was running.

Where? Who knows?

Capt Elmo Jayawardena

Elmojay1@gmail.com