in the shadow of Jericho

I've been watching this for a while now.  Standing back on the bluff, sand swirling, storm brewing, armies marching. There isn't a whole lot I can do. I've tried to warn both gently and forcefully, tried to listen, tried to ignore, but the walls are beginning to crack. The sky starting to crumble.  

I see BC stubbornly rooted in the middle of a doomed city. One I evacuated months ago and I remember something about him; there is a direct correlation between him & head injuries and him dealing with his ex. Quite literally he seems to get hit upside the head with their festering past & their haphazard co-parenting skills. 

It's about to happen again but on a much larger scale. I predict casualties. I say that with the same voice I used to predict that we would be standing here in this very spot. BC unable to change, dismissing me like a false prophet preaching from the walls by saying "hindsight is always 20-20". 

Yes, Dear, except when it was foresight then I do believe it is actually called being right; right?

What I see coming is more than a single swift impending blow to the head. The wave I am watching is a fracture line inside the mortar that threatens to bring it all down. It will rain bricks and I don't want to be in the path of that sort of weather. I don't want to be the person left to clean it up. And I don't want to raise my child in the rumble. 

I can see BC, veiled in thin denial about the state of the wall, and yet bracing for the weight of its failure. As usually, he has forgotten to calculate for the things he can't quantify. He has forgotten about the impact on the little non-combatant living here with us. The one I smuggled into bed with us last night because her room seemed too far off of a place to safely put her.

Away from the shadow that the wall casts life in the "city" is good. Perhaps better than it has been in a long time. Plans for a fertile garden, promises of quiet weekends in the woods & long lost drives down dirt roads. The anticipation of long summer nights watching greedy flames rise through the darkness to lick the night air... and I think, if only "this disaster" weren't here looming over our heads. 

The building of the wall was a mistake. Or more accurately many mistakes, each brick accidently placed and fixed, growing higher and higher around us as BC tried to ignore it away. It tumbling to dust will be justified. But you will find a world crashing to a halt carries casualties in its wake.

The trumpets are already blowing; it is only a matter of time. What I can't seem to figure out is where, if there is any, is it safe to stand. See, I never wanted to be right but I know something BC doesn't because he refuses to see it; I know what made the walls of Jericho tumble- the first 2 times it crumbled. I know the true power of marching feet.