8It's a Sunday, but the rain is Monday rain. I stand, dry, sheltered by the tint of a yellow umbrella. Those around me go about their lives, unable to understand why it is they live, and fail to find any true meaning in what they do. It is a meaningless world for them, but simple commodities are able to keep them occupied enough not to realize this. They are hopeless blundering things, and it is for this reason which I love to watch them.
There's no school on Sundays, normally I stay home and do miscellaneous things such as tidy my room if it is too dirty, write poetry or read books. I don't like rainy days, not normally, but today I made an exception. What led to this? One could say the internet - a seamless, limitless medium communicating the ideas of all sorts of faceless people. I have an interest in poetry, there is something attractive about the way the words bring feeling to a subject. Emotions are easily manipulated by carefully placed words. Love, sadness, anger and hate - mostly anger and hate - course through the lines and into the veins. It is magic.
On the internet, countless of faceless things carve out their angsty hearts and smear them, black and red, in fiction and poetry sites to satisfy their need for self expression. They are alone, the world is against them, everything in their lives has been hard and cruel and unbearable. The one relief they possess from their pain is to let the world feel it - shovel it off to other anonymous beings who they hope will understand or at lease, accept them. And if not, then they become the enemy, they become the new punching bag who doesn't understand, wants to control their lives, expects too much from them, has it too easy and then, surprisingly, doesn't understand.
How sad.
After reading one too many of such poems, I decided it was time for me to go outside, into the drizzly morning armed with nothing but good humor and my favorite umbrella. It really is a pity that some people can't seem to write about the good things in life - like flowers and trails of ants leading to a fallen biscuit, or the breeze. They seem incapable of reveling in the sun, the miracle of a new day and the humbling power of raw elements. From the way they complain about their lives it would appear that they are being crushed by the weight of the world when the truth is, they don't know enough about the world to be complaining about it. They are so convinced about their pain, they are blind. Even though I complain about this aspect of humanity, I know that for my sake, it must exist. Without it, there would be less for me to work with.
The day is full of melancholy and people move sluggishly to their destinations. They are interesting to watch because I know that one day, they will all be mine. I believe that people who do not have focus are a waste of air and space. Without such people, there would be no cues at the food courts, no buyers for the lottery and no one to crowd the bus. It would be an easy life where solid people can pursue their leisure without petty hindrances - acquaintances who can't deal with the pressure. There would be significantly few people walking these streets today.
I inhale the hot, humid air, the smell of summer rain, and stand there, simply watching. A young boy is being disciplined by his mother in a candy shop. A boy I recognize from school begins to cross the road, oblivious to the speeding car, whose driver is talking enthusiastically on her mobile phone. He and a gaggle of friends are joking, pushing each other and laughing. What was his name again? Certainly, I can not remember every small and insignificant detail that parades before me in my life. I have, however, a vague impression of the boy through something a classmate said. Her name, I can remember. Mercedes. Ah, how ironic.
It seems that they boy will not notice the car in time, despite the fact that it is a bright, bright shade of hot pink. One of his friends shouts at him from the safety of the sidewalk, but I know it's too late for any of them to do anything about it. The boy laughs, taking his friend's shocked expression as a joke. He continued to walk towards me, strutting confidently to his inevitable death. From where I stood, I could easily reach him, pull him to safety, but saving people is not what one would do on instinct! No, the decision to prolong a stranger's life required some thought. Would I dive out of the dry comfort of my umbrella to his rescue? Was such a person worth getting wet? Lucky for him, I decided that he would have his uses.
Faking surprise is no feat for an innocent school girl like me, but I don't think I've moved quite so fast in a while. Move, my mind had thought, and almost instantly, I was beside the boy, pulling him off the road, falling on the grass. It was truly an exciting moment. He fell on top of me, and I watched helplessly as my sunny bright umbrella tumbled onto the road and was crushed unceremoniously by the pink monster. The carnage was horrible, and I couldn't help but let my anger and sorrow well up in my eyes and spill down my face. Fifty meters later, I heard the beast swerve to a halt, but everything seemed so distant. I had bought that umbrella myself, damn it. The dazed boy lay stunned and heavy on top of me, the thought that he might have been seriously injured was probably running through his mind, that's if his mind was working at all. I wondered if it would have made a difference if someone had replaced his brain with a snail. No, probably not.
The driver, I hesitate to refer to her as human, ran towards us, waving her hands wildly and obviously spooked. She looked terrified and guilty, but try as I might, I could not harbour a single drop of sympathy for her.
"Oh my God! Oh my God! Are you ok?" she kept screaming at the boy and I.
At this time, the boy removed his sweaty, dirty, male smelling body off me and dusted himself off, freeing me to rescue my broken umbrella from being run over again. The handle was broken, the shaft was bent, and the water-resistant cloth had been torn from it's structure. The thing was beyond salvageable. The boy and the woman were talking behind me, but I had no interest in their conversation. After a moment, she thrusted a fifty dollar note into my hand and hurried off.
Fifty dollars. As if that was going to fix anything, the dumb bitch.
His friends had crossed the road to form a comforting friend circle around the boy. Some were patting his back and others were laughing, relieved. The boy looked shocked, but managed to to call out to me, "Hey!"
I turned to face him, composed. As composed as a girl with a flattened umbrella could be.
"Didn't anyone tell you how to look left and right?" I said evenly.
"Yeah, Johnny, look before you cross," one of his idiot friends punched him on the shoulder.
The boy, Johnny, grinned sheepishly and scratched his head like a monkey on the Discovery Chanel. In my experience, most people are stupid, some are mentally impaired. Boys, however, are completely retarded.
"Thanks for, you know, saving my life," he said, looking down at his feet.
"You're welcome as long as I don't have to do it again," I said, studying the mud stains on my dress. The boy knew gratitude, a useful emotion.
"Can I, uh, buy you a drink or something?" He asked, blushing a little now. His friends made some inappropriate comments.
"That would be nice," I said.
Excellent, I smiled, things are going as planned.
Story in celebration of a New Year
BB : Often, when people think of sociopaths or psychopaths, they think of vicious, cunning serial killers. However, sociopaths can live a very normal life in the general population. Contrary to believe, most of them are very charasmatic and are sometimes found leading cults, religions and countries. Also, males are more likely to be sociopaths than femals. Interesting? I thought so. This will most likely stay a oneshot.