Murder

By all appearances, it seems North Korea’s unstable ruler, Kim Jong Un, had his half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, killed.

Kim Jong Nam was, at one time, the favored child and was set to rise to supremacy in North Korea.  Sadly, he abruptly fell out of favor in 2001 when he tried to sneak out of North Korea to visit Tokyo Disneyland.  He was exiled from North Korea a few years after that and has been living in exile ever since.

On February 13, Kim Jong Nam was approached by two women while navigating through a busy airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  One woman accosted Kim Jong Nam from the front and distracted him.  The second woman approached from behind and then reached around to hold a rag soaked in a yet unknown substance over his mouth, nose, and eyes.  After only three seconds the women fled.

Kim Jong Nam fell into distress immediately.  Fanning his hands at his face, he sought out airport officials.  The officials led Kim Jong Nam to an airport clinic.  Once there, he collapsed to the floor.  Within a few hours of his arrival to the airport he was dead.

Yesterday, several news programs aired airport security camera footage of the attack.  They also showed clips of his arrival and eventual collapse at the clinic.

The video of this murder particularly disturbed me.  A man simply walking through the airport.  Nobody notices as the two women approach.  Nobody notices when they leave.  A confused man wanders around with thousands of other confused travelers.  He has no idea he is about to be dead.

Cold.

I woke after sleeping partway through last night and started thinking about the murder again.  As I lay there, cycling the video images of this murder in my mind, 20 pounds of housecat suddenly jumped onto my chest from nowhere.  I didn’t totally freak-out, but I froze there for a second, wondering if I had reached the end of days.

The cat soon took to purring and kneading.  I eventually drifted off into another nightmare where a plane fell from the sky and crashed right beside me. 

That, I can handle.

--Mitchell Hegman