Defuse

“You're too good, Ricky!”

How many times have I heard that.

The truth is different. I'm no good. I... defuse!

I was fortunate enough—yes, fortunate enough—to do my military service. 5/95, in the midst of the Balkan War. July of that year: the Srebrenica genocide. A horror committed just a few hundred kilometers from home, in the heart of civilized Europe. One of humanity's lowest points.

Those months were formative for me. I learned to use rifles and submachine guns, and I was among the best at the range: very high scores. Yet it was precisely in those moments that I began to hate guns from the bottom of my heart. Because if you really know them, you understand that the only way to survive is to avoid them.

I remember the feeling of power it gave me to hold a weapon. An almost perverse pleasure: that cold object became an extension of your body, breathing with you, pulsating with you. It made you feel immortal. And that very vertigo scared me.

Fate would have it that I ended up in the Military Engineers Corps. Specifically, the Demining Engineers Corps. There I learned the art of defusing: bombs, grenades, anti-personnel mines. But also rifles and machine guns.

And I discovered an even greater pleasure: rendering harmless those same weapons that could destroy, maim, kill. Transforming them into powerless pieces. Inert. Useless.

Defuse.

It became my calling. And over time, I learned to do it with people, too. Bullies get excited by triggering anger, provoking explosions to have an excuse to hit even harder. I, on the other hand, take away their fuse. The fuse. I leave them with wet powder.

And at that point they have to come to terms with themselves, without any holds. Then, if they want, we can talk calmly.

Look at what's happening in the world: the so-called "powerful" seem like just a bunch of ignorant bullies who enjoy teasing each other to heighten tensions. They drool like rabid dogs, waiting for an accident, the spark that will justify even greater violence. They were elected by their people, and that justifies everything. But they remain safe, while thousands of innocent people die.

Sons of bitches.

Sooner or later someone will defuse them. And on that day they will pay for everything.