Not as Lost as they think
Whether you’re a fan of the ABC series ‘Lost’ or not, I think last night’s episode had an important message for everyone. No way to recap that show or series, but no need either, because the message I’m talking about is so universal.
This thing is riddled with mysteries and story lines and hidden messages. Last night, one in particular stood out. You don’t need to know who the characters Hurley and Sawyer are to get the significance — which I didn’t connect until later — of a ping-pong match they played on the beach (where else, when you’re stranded on an island?). Before beginning what Sawyer no doubt thought would be a slaughter, Hurley innocently asked him if they could play by “mercy rules”, and Sawyer asked what in the world that meant. Hurley said if he — or Sawyer, by deference — should happen to have total dominance (like an 11-0 match going), they would call the game and the dominant one would win. Good.
In a separate story, Sayid captures the man who had just shot him, and flashbacks occur throughout the episode of Sayid being captured by a fellow Iraqi and beaten for his time in the Iraqi Republican Guard. Sayid was accused of torturing the man’s wife while interrogating her years earlier. The woman watches Sayid get his own beating now, and under threat of death he still denies torturing her.
But….late in the show, the scene from this flashback that is so momentous happens when the woman comes alone (with her cat) to see Sayid before her husband is due to kill him. It’s a dramatic, poignantly human exchange. Her hands reveal the evidence of physical torture, her face and voice reveal the deep wounds she still carries. Sayid listens as she tells a penetrating story about being afraid to come out of her apartment, until some kids outside put that cat in a box and dropped firecrackers in it to torture the animal. She went out to save it, and it never leaves her side now. Sometimes it bites or scratches for no reason, because its experience of fear is so ingrained.
‘Just admit what you did to me’ she demands of Sayid angrily. ‘Just tell me you remember me.’ It was really emotional. He stared at her, then broke down completely sobbing, with a full, piercing confession and wrenching apology for what he had, indeed, done to her. They’re both crying, and the moment is powerful. But it became more so when she managed to utter “I forgive you.”
She could have exacted revenge, could have had the retribution her husband arranged. But killing him would not resolve or heal anyting, and so she forgave, and they were both released from their ravages.
Mercy rules.
