Don’t you ever judge me; don’t say that I’m flippant.
(Vesti la giubba e la faccia infarina!) *
Laugh, clown, so no one can see your agony!
Don’t judge me until you too have broken the
shoulders of a friend…
… in order to fit his dead body onto a stretcher.
Don’t judge me until you have cried with someone
whom you introduced to rock climbing…
… when his girlfriend had just died because he
made a stupid mistake.
Don’t judge me until the person whom you
introduced to rock climbing has died in a
mountain accident …
… because he had nothing left to live for.
Don’t judge me until you’ve dragged bodies out of a
crashed aircraft…
… and one of them was someone whom you knew…
… and—many years later—you met the parents of
one of the other victims.
Don’t judge me until the child you are trying to treat
for tuberculosis has died…
… because you took too long to get through the
red tape of the health service.
Don’t judge me until you have tried to comfort a
mother after her baby daughter died in
her arms…
… from the HI virus that she had inadvertently
passed on to her.
Don’t judge me until you have had to decide to give
up doing CPR (after twenty minutes) on a
baby who suffocated...
… because her carers took too long to call for help.
Don’t judge me until you have driven through the
streets with a dead baby on the back seat…
… because no one could be bothered to come and
certify her dead.
Don’t you ever judge me!
And I’ll try not to judge you.
* Put on the costume and the powdered face.
6 May 2005