A story written by Catholic Law Professor A.G. Harmon was published recently in Vita Poetica, an online journal that is a collective that promotes the creative expression of the life of art and faith. In his fictional story, “News from Sparta,” Harmon explores life and sacrifice. The story is inspired by a 2018 incident in Carcassonne, France, where a police officer, Arnaud Beltrame, traded places with a woman being held hostage by a terrorist inside a local grocery store. 

Vita Poetica
By: A.G. Harmon
Date: October 2020
News from Sparta

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After it happened, the insistent world had not only called, but also wrote and spoke and dreamed and asserted all manner of things about the two of them. There was not a news outlet in the country that did not carry the story, and it only grew larger as the days passed, like some mutant fruit in a tropical garden. Time and circumstance—sun-dappled shade and teeming soil— fed it with prodigal riches until it grew out of all proportion. The mounting legend could not be contained and it drove her from any semblance of peace. Only after several months did different matters take the public’s attention—other horrors, fresher spectacles.

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