source? He is right. That is to say, I cannot focus on these particulars, the ache in my ear that pounds like a drum every time I open my mouth to speak or desperately yawn is all I can think about now, but I have every right to be ashamed, because I have failed. They are all interested in statistics, credit, blame. No one asks about the what, the why, the how, they must focus on that miserable little author, which was not the intent. This chess game demanded more rigor, and through momentary weaknesses I have been undone. But I should take solace in some of these other letters scented with hope: You should be proud for having brought this to light, or I saw you on that news program with my son, we were both too disturbed to watch it, but we respect you for your courage. No, that is even worse, to know something but not to face it, isn't it just another form of not knowing? But no, that is more presumption on my part.
 | | Another failure. I have shoved a thing in front of a person, and commanded them: Witness! Acknowledge! As if I have the right. And then I stare at a grainy photo, a woman in the midst of torture, a machete sickly sweet with death as it slices through her left ear. Two other men pin her down, a strand from her braided hair falls across her wide-open face in a manner that might have inspired poets in another age. A soldier, perhaps the group's senior, stands apart from the tableau, stares straight at the camera, neither joy nor horror on his face, only the repose that comes from determination. This photo has traveled thousands of miles, been passed from one rebel's hand to another, eluded officials and censors, acquired the importance of a holy grail, because here was evidence, here was remembering. I saw it for the first time in a tea garden, held in the hands of an eighty year-old man with a beard that ran down his chest and ended in a point
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