With the Sun on Her Back

With the sun on her back. She made the decision. It wasn't a like a spark of lightning, it wasn't a moment that she would remember for the rest of her life. It was a soft, subtle decision, to make a decisive action. That would change her, and the rest of her life forever. In the future though, when people asked her what made her this way. She would look back, and be completely unable to remember.

There is a force, inside of every human being, that drives us, to be who we are, no matter what, despite ourselves. The decision that she made, with the sun on her back, facing out over the ocean, was to forever embrace that force. To never deny it.

She thought to herself. From now on, whenever I am confronted with doubt. I will ask myself, 'What would I do? And then I will act accordingly, and deal with whatever comes my way.

She went home. She saw her husband, gave him a kiss on the cheek and told him that she was leaving. It wasn't him, well, it was kind of him. But it was her fault, she had never loved him. She had lied. She was sorry. There was a lot wrong with him, and there was a lot wrong with her. It wasn't that. It was just that sometimes, you don't love somebody. It's okay.

She went to an ATM and took out all of her money from each account, of which there were many. Loaded them up in her backpack. Walked to the airport and bought a ticket to Europe.

No one from her old life ever saw her again. She was always okay with that. She would say.

No one from my old life knew me anyways.

Sacrifice.

Sacrifice is an abstract concept. And, as a concept, it's helpful to imagine it as some type of road. A path of sacrifice, can lead to values, and lessons, that would be otherwise, unattainable. Nobility, can be earned, through a path of sacrifice. Honor, and self respect may be acquired. The longer, the path of sacrifice is, the more there is to be received in the end.

There's a catch though. Although you can hope, for the acquisition of these lessons and values. It's not guaranteed. In fact. The whole notion of abstract paths is a lie. Life isn't a road. It's life. Sacrifice can be required, sure, but there's not much gained through it. That's the point of sacrifice.  To lose something, to give to another and to receive nothing in return. Perhaps, you can gain some sense of satisfaction, or maybe somebody will be paying attention and congratulate you. If you're lucky.

This is what is going through my mind when we realized that the plane was going down. Sure, I mean, you always think to yourself 'women and children first'. However, in practice? It's a bit more difficult than that. I start thinking to myself. Five parachutes. Twenty passengers. Ten of which are women and children. 

I think they used to do the whole women and children first thing to keep on with the survival of the tribe or race or species. All things of which, I personally feel no allegiance to. Time is running out here. People are starting to panic. I'm not the pilot, I'm not responsible for this. I'm not going to die so that some complete strangers live. Am I?

Everything that I've ever seen, read or heard on this subject matter, is telling me, as a man, that I need to let them live, and allow myself to die. That's what I've been told. One of the kids might cure cancer or something. I'm not going to do that. My life is expendable, to save them.

Is it though? Would they even learn my name? They don't look like the kind of people that would learn my name. Besides, what the fuck is my name? My name isn't breathing in air, enjoying a cool wind in the sun. My name isn't alive. I am alive. I want to stay alive.

Why women first anyway? Isn't that kind of sexist? Are they more required than me? Aren't we all supposed to be equal? Kids sure, they're young. But the world has more women than it does men. So what the hell, right?

The pilots are putting on parachutes, children are crying. Men and women are screaming. I'm right beside a parachute. I could grab it and put it on and be free and alive.

Here's one thing that they always forget to tell you about sacrifice.

It's a choice.

The Boy.

It took us a while to get to this point. We traveled long, we traveled far. We made sacrifices. We lost more than we gained. Finally, we were there. We made it. Our travels had been worth it. For we were there. And the old man, was going to give us something that we needed, to make our lives better. We looked at each other with smiles on our face and waited for him to say something.

We were in his cabin, his cabin was confusing, because it wasn't nice at all. In any way, not even in an old wise way. There was a shocking amount of underwear hanging around. There were plates with molding food on them, and a lot of flies and other bugs, of types I had never seen, hanging around his place. He was dressed in a pink housecoat. Or at least, the patches that weren't brown from stains whose origins I choose not to speculate, were pink.

He took out a box. The box was filled with cigarettes. He pulled one out and lit it with a match. And he sat in a old brown chair. We could see his junk hanging out. It was hard not to look. Then finally, after some scratching and adjusting. He spoke:

"I have a constant vision in my mind that haunts me. There is a boy, and he has long sandy hair, and a t-shirt and shorts on. He's caught in some type of storm. And, in truth, I do not know what kind of storm. The backround of my vision is an unnatural white. He's clutching his breast to a pole. He's miserable and alone. His hair looks fantastic in the wind. And that's all I see. Whenever I close my eyes, or if I just get lost in thought, this image comes to me over and over. I don't know what it means."

Then he politely asked us to leave.

We assumed that we wasted our time. That there was no wisdom there. We thought maybe we got the wrong cabin. He had just wasted our time.

Years later, my travel companion, whom I had not spoken to in as much time. Called me.

"Hey."

"Hi?"

"I was just wondering."

"Yeah?"

"When you close your eyes now. Or get lost in thought"

"I see the boy."

"Okay."

Hate.

There was so much hate in the air, it was hard to breathe.

Someone was manipulating someone, someone was accusing someone of something. Someone was purposefully doing it, while being completely unaware at how horrible the behavior was. Someone was so overcome with hate, anger and fear. That they didn't know that everyone around them was trying to love them. So she deemed the love that they gave her, inadequate and empty.

She thought that they were doing to her, what she was doing to them. When people are blinded by their hate, anger and fear, they only see themselves. When someone was kind, she waited for the catch, when none presented itself. She made one. She would spend days of manipulation in order to create one. She would make something out of nothing. Or she would take love, and talk about how selfish it is. Because, love makes you feel good.

So we're all hypocrites.

This writer wishes this was fiction. This writer wishes that this was just one person.

It's not just one person.

He hated himself so much, that there was no comprehension that he had value. That his value was not as quantifiable as others. That his value was his smile, his laughter and his joy. He didn't know his value because he never learned to express those things. Hate can lead to something that feels like power.

Hate is not a power, it's a force. It's a force that lives in all of us, that leads to an action of negative value. All actions of negative are pointless, because they go backwards instead of forward. They move against the goodness of the world. The actions of hate lead to more hate, hate has no point. So the actions are pointless.

That's why they hate, they are afraid of having a point. So they make sure that they don't. They hate. Hate keeps life, and lives pointless.

That's as far as this writer can understand it. That's as far as this writer is willing to try.

It's impossible to write too much about hate it seems. Since it's pointless, no matter what, whenever one tries to write about it. There is a realization that you're writing about nothing. There is no point. It's just hate. It's a waste of time.

Pink Elephants. A memory.

" I was reading something the other day, and they found an actual pink elephant!"

"No they didn't!"

"Yes they did! I read it in a magazine!"

"Which one?"

"Cosmo!"

I was clearly lying, but I was ten years old. So it was okay. I don't think that counts as a white lie, or a bad lie. Simply, a stupid lie. Serving no purpose, other than an exploration of the boundaries of what you can get away with in conversation.

I'm better at it now. But still, that kid had to go home and ask his mom if she read that there was a pink elephant is Cosmopolitan Magazine. That must have been a great talk for his mom.

"Mom, is it true they found a pink elephant?"

"No, who told you that honey? Pink elephants don't exist."

"A kid a school said he read it in Cosmo."

"They don't write about pink elephants in Cosmo honey."

"Oh, okay... Mom?"

"Yes?"

"What do they write about in Cosmo?"

Ha! I'm picturing the look on her face. Amazing.

I guess now you know what kind of kid I was. I miss those kinds of lies. The lies of adulthood tend to be so serious and believable.

Hard to navigate sometimes. You know?

I read somewhere recently that somebody hacked into a news network and reported a couple of explosions at the White House, where the President lives. It actually affected the stock market for the day.

The thing that I don't understand about it is; if you have the power to hack into a news network and report fake news. Why choose something something so horrible? I get that you're probably a special kind of asshole that probably has issues beyond my own understanding. But imagine the mass hysteria if CNN had reported the discovery of a pink elephant.

That probably would have stock market too.