Five grams, say—a teaspoon or so. RDX, they thought, or PETN. Oh, those acronyms—always so innocuous sounding.

Both organic compounds. A bit like us, actually. We are composed of organic compounds as well, combinations of Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen. Just vary the little 2s and 3s that tag along with the symbols—C, N, H, O, which are acronyms, too, of a sort.

Oh, and both compounds are supplied as convenient, plasticized sheets, cuttable to any shape you might require. And both have high brisance. Another innocuous word, that. It almost rhymes with reminiscence, which is likely all you would have remaining of your hand if you had reached for that pager.

Rhymes, too, with dehiscence—again, a bit slantly, but oh, so fitting. It means the bursting open of a seed pod and scattering of seeds. Another meaning: the bursting open of a surgically closed wound. Now that is not only a slant rhyme but a metaphor of sorts. Not as pretty a word as brisance, but a word full of connotations and associations.

Of course, none of this would have entered your mind if a brisant five grams had burst open your child’s body, shattering and scattering all the love and life and potential and hope and dreams and beauty and meaning in your world out onto the floor at your feet.

Author’s Notes:

Brisance (from French briser: “to break, shatter”; from Celtic brissim: “to break”) is a technical term for the shattering capability of a high explosive.

Epilogue:

“In what appears to be a sophisticated, remote attack, pagers used by hundreds of members of Hezbollah exploded almost simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria Tuesday, killing at least nine people—including a young girl—and wounding thousands more.”

—From an article by Associated Press, New York published in PBS News online (17 September 2024)

Bio: Roy J. Beckemeyer