Freedom on a Waffle Cone

As soon as the 4^th of July or a similar nationalistic day arrives, our patriotic hormones start to tango. We want to do the song-and-dance sequence in any little space we seize, wear the flag on eyeslids and cheeks, dip our hands in paint, dress up our hair in a whacky, eye-catching gear, and refurbish ourselves, in any which way, that would catch attention, preferably the lens’.

We sing songs and cheer the parade and everyone makes sure they know at leas the year of freedom that the country has stepped into, before stepping out. We do mock skits and dress up to be the 1^st president or a freedom fighter. Our cookies and pie have the gradient of the national colors on them, even the cheese and chocolate in color-coded resemblance.

How many people actually know the history or how long their timelines are memorized is hard to judge because we are all busy hollering and showing off our costumes. It’s more about merriment than paying a tribute to the bloodbath at the front that once took place. The countless lives of young boys dressed in soldiers’ uniforms, those lost letters to and from home in the mail, sepia photos with torn edges and a saved rifle from today’s date just sixty years ago, are all a bleak part of the celebrations.

Nevertheless it’s a celebration of being alive, our country being alive and it really doesn’t matter whether we pray for all those lives or prey upon those colorful cupcakes. As long as the calendar’s date is circled with a red pen and a reminder is beeped on our phones that today was the day when history was recorded, it’s all fine.

And like any other celebration, the paint smudges, banners wreck, and we all go to sleep. This is freedom coated in nationalistic sprinkles