Your thousand reflections

The other day Nina called, all the way from Canada. Hadn't heard of her in a while, didn't really miss her. I don't mean to sound harsh, I know she was doing fine. She had always done fine.

Anyway, she asked:
-Felix, how're things going on over there?-

She had seen in the news about the insecurity. She had seen about the deaths, about the corruption, about the fear to which unfortunately, we have become used to. But she sounded so unbelonging, so selfless, as if she hadn't lived here at all. Almost as if she bragged about her situation. Pointing with her perfect finger and her malicious grin. I don't remember what I answered. I probably said it wasn't that bad.

However, she sowed doubts deep within me, which left me reflecting upon.

We might as well all be wicked. It may not be this or that country's malady but a whole world epidemic. We may all be so poisoned and we haven't even noticed: sick with distrust, sick with indifference. Sick with hypocrisy and jealousy and frustration. And I frequently ask myself: Where are all the specialists? What's the point in keeping all those politicians and lawyers and doctors and engineers if they can't even make the slightest change? They're not the cure, why do we keep relying, following them if they're equally lost?

But in these times of sorrow, it would be imprudent to ask for sanity. Everyone's confused, everyone's affected. That's why we hang on to ourselves, we hold on to people for us to love but society deems us selfish, egotist, hedonistic and shallow. And under these pretenses you can only expect to lose, there's never a right turn, no escape from judgment.

Sometimes I get the idea pretty much everyone has found their guilt partners, though. It's funny. I don't blame them for doing so. In fact, I'll have to join the club eventually and confess in spite of the possibility of being marked a cynic. I like you, I think I really do. Sometimes I think you might as well like me. I enjoy watching you laugh and I prefer to think it's mainly because of me. Random thoughts come across my mind that there might be happiness within us, waiting to be discovered. But there are days I feel you so distant, and I can only see the shadow of your shadow. Your gaze's so tenuous it escapes the touch of my fingertips and I don't dare to come closer. I don't wanna scare you with my suspicious attempts. So I just sit apart and continuously look your way. Trying, touching from a distance.

Perhaps someday I'll ask to join your mirror games. I want to share my cup of coffee so bad, but I'm afraid to lose you in your thousand reflections.

One of us being misread.

....
...
..

I did saw one time this middle-aged guy in the middle of the street. It was an opaque Sunday afternoon, filled with dust and silence and wind-shattered clouds. He wore gloves, had a STOP sign in his hands, helmet on. But he wasn't a traffic warden. He pretended to be a traffic warden and the neighbors feared him for doing so. They thought he was insane. This didn't happen in the city, though. It happened back home. My father told me he shouldn't be doing that, that it wasn't necessary. There was already a STOP sign in the street.

And I said:
-Dad, many people have fictional jobs, I think this one's pretty harmless.-

He wasn't pleased. He raised an eyebrow as we drove past by. Nobody had asked this guy to do what he was doing, that's why I deduce he was happy in his peculiar way, contributing with his (unrequested) service to community. But we had to go and fuck it all again. Lifting our hands, pointing our fingers, letting our tongues run loose. We can't stand to see someone smile, we have to crush their fantasies and slap some sense into them:

'Wake up! Enough of this dream! Open your eyes to the real world. We have no reasons to smile, we only cry and whine. Join us, in time you'll see it's for the best. We can't afford having misfits, it's better if you help us kill all hope. We need more sadness! It's not enough with what we've got! You'll soon be as sick and as healthy as us and you'll be thankful. Now sign here and leave, walk those revolving doors that will spit you back until eternity. And do it fast!'

But I don't recall those forever doors. They weren't always there.
They definitely weren't always there.