The diamond, other than being a beautiful stone, hung over the country as a bright spectre, seated in the crown of the clocktower that faced the east and caught the spectrum of the sun rise each day and was admired by foreigners in their hotel balconies and below them, on the dusty streets, the native people glanced up on the morning commute and saw the diamond, and knew it belonged to them, and was in their country, but ultimately was not theirs, but the foreign empire that ruled there. Being so proximate and untouchable was a mockery.
When the clocktower crumbled under the inferno that tore through the governmental building, the diamond tumbled through smoke and flame and was lost. It is impossible to say if the diamond was plucked up from the smouldering rubble, but the dividing belief that it was taken by either a native or a foreign hand, real or imagined, has led to the bloodiest chronicle in the recorded memory of the nation.
Paddy Dobson
22nd January 2023