“You mean to say that we are left behind?”
His eyes dilated, his lips quivered and sweat broke down his forehead. He felt a sudden kick in his chest, probably caused by spontaneous news. It felt as though he had a baby in his chest, crying and trying to get itself out. He placed his hand on his chest too feel his heartbeat, to make sure he was still alive, that this wasn’t a dream.
“And who isn’t?” was the answer. It was blunt and cold. “We are always left behind friend. Our type is born as dirt under someones shoe, and it is only common sense that one day the shoe will descend and we … well you figure it” he laughed and lighted a cigarette.
Obviously it was not what he wanted to hear. He wanted reassurances, excuses, anything to make him feel better, to make his heart stop beating like a jackhammer against his chest. Left behind, abandoned, suddenly all of his dreams, all of his desires came crumbling like a sand castle being washed away by a wave. He sat down and prayed for someone to give him a drink. He lost his appetite.
“Mother” he thought to himself. How young she was, and how beautiful. He remembered an episode form when he was younger. He was careless, fell on the street and scraped his knee. It was the first time he saw the color of his own blood. To him it looked like some kind of beverage, a jam or strawberry juice. How he was supposed to know what it was, he was just a child. He ran to his mother, crying saying “Mommy, mommy will i live?”. She took him in her hands. For her it was amusing to see a child facing pain, speaking of death, knowing nothing about neither of them.
Those soft, lavender smelling hands. He always felt secure in those hands. She spoke to him. Softly, as though her words were like feathers, she said to him “Yes my son, you will live”, with a gleeful smile in front white teeth.
He remembered that moment now as he was abandoned by the world he thought was real. He looked to the sky and something came to him. The world was here first, he remembered someone said, it owes you nothing. It is cruel, dark and unfair. He looked at his friend who was flirting with some passing by waitress. Anger, was the only justified emotion, and it barged it without invitation.
“This can’t be!” he grabbed his friend by his shirt. “I am successful , i am famous, they need me. There must be a mistake. They need me.”
But the truth was that they did not need him, neither did anyone really. he was just another smile passing in the sun. His success, his work, all turned to dust, gone. His life, it was still with him. You can curse religion, you can fight, you can say that God does not exist, you can say that it is your right to say so, and it is, but the reality is, no one is going to give a flying fuck for something that you saw on TV and adopted as your faith. Reality is either a big fucking liar, or a dead honest bitch.
