It’s that kind of dream that keeps running in and out of your head all day, but fades a little bit every time. A detail lost each time you try to recall it and wonder about the meaning of it. At the end of the day most of the dream is lost and all you have left is how it made you feel; scared, or happy or sad, maybe in love or burning with hate, anguish or victory. And you ask yourself why your subconscious pulled out of its hat this particular dream and why it wanted you to feel like this.
It is ten o’clock in the morning and I can still taste my dream as it lingers, like mist before my eyes, like a movie shown over and over again. At the tip of my tongue it tastes sweet, but becomes somewhat bitter the more I taste it. The warm, swelling feeling of love is replaced by wonder. Why did I dream this? Does my subconscious feel the need to mock me with what I can’t have? Or is it telling me to be patient, it will come?
I still feel its weight in my arms as I reach for it.
Monday 26 October 2009
Tuesday 20 October 2009
Wallpaper
She was wallpaper. Or so she imagined. At every party or out to dinner with her friends she would be the one blending in to the background, merging with grey and becoming invisible. Unnoticed. A stranger or two would perhaps walk by , but without looking in her direction they would pass and go on being merely strangers. Like ships passing in the night. Her friends on the other hand would hook up, for a night or two, or for more long term relationships. And they would fall out of this world of ones and zeroes and become twosomes, the some ones. And yet she was still a no one in the background. No matter how few people she went out with she never got noticed. And soon she did not go out at all. She was wallpaper.
She had evolved and gotten used to being this shade of grey, like asphalt. She understood that by accepting who she was, she was surely amplifying her own social status, or lack thereof. Even worse, her hole person was affected by this; always with her head held down, letting her hair cover her face, always dressing in grey or black, the urban jungle camouflage, moving alongside the walls from corner to corner. Sometimes days would pass without her talking to anyone. Scared of losing her mind she would talk to her cat just to recall how to have a conversation, even just a monologue, how to relate to another living, breathing thing. Sadly she had realized that talking to a cat would mean that she had already lost her mind.
It was the loneliest of days; Sunday, and in spite of a chilling winter breeze she went out to buy the newspaper, just to see people. Just to talk to the man in the newspaper kiosk, even if he would not even look up from his work, or at all see her, not really, even if all he would say to her was; “That will be one-twenty”, and she would give him the money and take the newspaper and bid him farewell. Even if that was all, those crumbs were more than she had gotten all week.
On her way back, making her way through the people standing in queue outside the theater, not seeing her, not making way for her to pass, her eye caught a glimpse of steel blue eyes. A tall, handsome man stood out from all the rest with his beautiful eyes as blue as ice, yet warm looking. He caught her eye not because he was beautiful but because he literally caught her eye. Their eyes locked for a second, what felt like eternity and he saw. He saw her. She had stopped walking and stood frozen in his gaze. The masses flowed around them like seaweed under thundering waves, back and forth, but she stood, like a pillar of salt, firm and forceful.
It lasted no more than a heartbeat, a second, as the man broke contact ad stepped into a waiting cab. As he drove passed her, surely forever lost, she was drowning in a clash of contradicting emotions. Fear, adrenaline, excitement, joy and loneliness. Everything pounded at once through her body and mind, from the bottom of her feet to the top of her head. Like bulls in Pamplona pounding deathly through the streets it charged through her soul. With unease she took a faulty step, shuttered and with haste she walked home and locked the door behind her, suddenly feeling like the only person in the whole, wide world.
Weeks would pass, but the memory of being noticed left a trace of a smile on her face. A crocked smile like she was remembering something funny. At least that was what people who noticed her thought. They would see this ethereal being in a black winter coat and a red scarf, her hair in brown waves falling down her back, and her brown almond eyes seeing passed them and beyond to something too far away for them to grasp.
Her eyes kept searching her surroundings everywhere she went. Cafes, restaurants, shops, the sidewalk, the park, and back to the theater. Ignoring the interested glances from every other man, she had only eyes for the one she had seen weeks before. Like a drug ebbing out of her system she got more and more desperate for a new meet.
And then suddenly. On the busy sidewalk swarming with its grey masses of nobodies, she saw him. He was walking towards her, with what she perceived as determination in his steps. His eyes, oh, how she had missed his eyes! Her hart beat heavily with anticipation as she focused on putting one foot in front of the other, walking towards him. He looked straight at her, ignoring everybody else, bumping shoulders with them every two steps, but never loosing his way.
As they closed distance, her cheeks turned red with embarrassment over how desperate she had longed for him. Longed for him to rest his eyes upon her soul again. To see her, really see her, helping her to step out of the shadows. Guiding her to wrestle loose from the wall, limb from limb, and becoming visible.
A tapping sound caught her attention. One-two-tap, one-two-tap. People were moving out of the way from him who had her hart, and their distance closed in. His icy blue eyes were a mere arms length away when she, as their eye contact broke, noticed the source of the tapping-sound. And as the earth shattered in a million pieces he walked passed her with a white stick held in his right hand tapping the asphalt every two step.
With a one-two-tap she was wallpaper again.
She had evolved and gotten used to being this shade of grey, like asphalt. She understood that by accepting who she was, she was surely amplifying her own social status, or lack thereof. Even worse, her hole person was affected by this; always with her head held down, letting her hair cover her face, always dressing in grey or black, the urban jungle camouflage, moving alongside the walls from corner to corner. Sometimes days would pass without her talking to anyone. Scared of losing her mind she would talk to her cat just to recall how to have a conversation, even just a monologue, how to relate to another living, breathing thing. Sadly she had realized that talking to a cat would mean that she had already lost her mind.
It was the loneliest of days; Sunday, and in spite of a chilling winter breeze she went out to buy the newspaper, just to see people. Just to talk to the man in the newspaper kiosk, even if he would not even look up from his work, or at all see her, not really, even if all he would say to her was; “That will be one-twenty”, and she would give him the money and take the newspaper and bid him farewell. Even if that was all, those crumbs were more than she had gotten all week.
On her way back, making her way through the people standing in queue outside the theater, not seeing her, not making way for her to pass, her eye caught a glimpse of steel blue eyes. A tall, handsome man stood out from all the rest with his beautiful eyes as blue as ice, yet warm looking. He caught her eye not because he was beautiful but because he literally caught her eye. Their eyes locked for a second, what felt like eternity and he saw. He saw her. She had stopped walking and stood frozen in his gaze. The masses flowed around them like seaweed under thundering waves, back and forth, but she stood, like a pillar of salt, firm and forceful.
It lasted no more than a heartbeat, a second, as the man broke contact ad stepped into a waiting cab. As he drove passed her, surely forever lost, she was drowning in a clash of contradicting emotions. Fear, adrenaline, excitement, joy and loneliness. Everything pounded at once through her body and mind, from the bottom of her feet to the top of her head. Like bulls in Pamplona pounding deathly through the streets it charged through her soul. With unease she took a faulty step, shuttered and with haste she walked home and locked the door behind her, suddenly feeling like the only person in the whole, wide world.
Weeks would pass, but the memory of being noticed left a trace of a smile on her face. A crocked smile like she was remembering something funny. At least that was what people who noticed her thought. They would see this ethereal being in a black winter coat and a red scarf, her hair in brown waves falling down her back, and her brown almond eyes seeing passed them and beyond to something too far away for them to grasp.
Her eyes kept searching her surroundings everywhere she went. Cafes, restaurants, shops, the sidewalk, the park, and back to the theater. Ignoring the interested glances from every other man, she had only eyes for the one she had seen weeks before. Like a drug ebbing out of her system she got more and more desperate for a new meet.
And then suddenly. On the busy sidewalk swarming with its grey masses of nobodies, she saw him. He was walking towards her, with what she perceived as determination in his steps. His eyes, oh, how she had missed his eyes! Her hart beat heavily with anticipation as she focused on putting one foot in front of the other, walking towards him. He looked straight at her, ignoring everybody else, bumping shoulders with them every two steps, but never loosing his way.
As they closed distance, her cheeks turned red with embarrassment over how desperate she had longed for him. Longed for him to rest his eyes upon her soul again. To see her, really see her, helping her to step out of the shadows. Guiding her to wrestle loose from the wall, limb from limb, and becoming visible.
A tapping sound caught her attention. One-two-tap, one-two-tap. People were moving out of the way from him who had her hart, and their distance closed in. His icy blue eyes were a mere arms length away when she, as their eye contact broke, noticed the source of the tapping-sound. And as the earth shattered in a million pieces he walked passed her with a white stick held in his right hand tapping the asphalt every two step.
With a one-two-tap she was wallpaper again.
Monday 5 October 2009
One step for mankind?
It has been on my mind all weekend. It has made me angry and frustrated, sad and afraid every time I have allowed the thought to creep up from the back of my mind and forward to my consciousness. I just can’t shake it, and maybe I’m not supposed to. I am after all human.
I read in the paper this Saturday about a thirty year old woman being raped by three men seen fleeing from their crime. I am sad to say that in my country, which allegedly is the best country in the world to live in according to the UN, assault and rape has become a common crime happening way to often for comfort.
Rape is a violation of body, privacy, freedom, mind and soul. It is taking something from another person using violence, scarring them for life. I get a lump in my throat just by thinking about it. It is, I believe, the worst thing anyone can do to another person. And to do this, in stripping this victim of all that is holy and tearing down their safe world and leaving them with nothing but fear, in a body they no longer own for themselves, you would have to be a monster. A rapist must be without conscience and humanity. How is it even possible to do this to someone? And when it is done, how can one live with himself?
In the cases that we have seen in media this last year it has too often been reported that there have been two, three or even four rapists in one assault. My mind keeps going back to this summer, when a girl, twenty years or so, got assaulted and raped in her own home, by two men. And this other girl, barely eighteen gets pulled from the road and into a van with four men. What monsters, what filthy cowards! What awful creature who thinks it can do this to another human being. Grown up men who rape a defenseless girl in an act of misplaced domination. Don’t they, themselves, have mothers? Sisters? Daughters? A hart?!
I hope they have nightmares of the victim screaming, I hope they see her eyes every time they close their own. I hope they are tormented every day for the rest of their life, like she surely is.
The punishment for said crime is ridiculous! It underestimates the worth of a girl, of her life and her freedom, her peace of mind. She is ruined for life, and IF the rapist get caught (90% of all rapes are not reported), and IF he gets convicted (the police dismissed eight out of ten cases), he is sentenced for just a few years in prison even though the law opens for a sentence up to ten years (twenty one years if there are more than one rapist). The punishment for the victim is harder and longer than that for the rapist! The victim’s punishment is for life! They claim that in my country there is gender equality. But if that were true, I imagine the punishment for rape would be much harder.
I wish for a superhero. I imagine him, cape and all, going out into the night, saving my sisters and punishing the evil. I wish for humanity to grow in our cold society and for us, everyone, to take to the streets in protest of what is happing. Not just for the victims in my country (eight - to sixteen thousand every year) but all over the world. For all the women, men and children who have been robbed of their self-worth and left in shame, and for their loved ones picking up the pieces. A march against rapists who take, with no moral, something they have no right to take. Who do it hiding in the night, in cars waiting, at war using it as a weapon, in pairs of two and three, like cowards, like beats of man. Like the roaches they have become, I want them to feel not even worthy to be crushed under our shoes. How can we allow this to continue? To read about it and not care enough, to know and yet ignore the frustration and hate, the anger and the fear.
My street is unsafe for me to walk in at night. I hate the men who made it like this and the system who allowed it to continue. And I hate us for not rising up against it. For this I am sorry I am only one..
I read in the paper this Saturday about a thirty year old woman being raped by three men seen fleeing from their crime. I am sad to say that in my country, which allegedly is the best country in the world to live in according to the UN, assault and rape has become a common crime happening way to often for comfort.
Rape is a violation of body, privacy, freedom, mind and soul. It is taking something from another person using violence, scarring them for life. I get a lump in my throat just by thinking about it. It is, I believe, the worst thing anyone can do to another person. And to do this, in stripping this victim of all that is holy and tearing down their safe world and leaving them with nothing but fear, in a body they no longer own for themselves, you would have to be a monster. A rapist must be without conscience and humanity. How is it even possible to do this to someone? And when it is done, how can one live with himself?
In the cases that we have seen in media this last year it has too often been reported that there have been two, three or even four rapists in one assault. My mind keeps going back to this summer, when a girl, twenty years or so, got assaulted and raped in her own home, by two men. And this other girl, barely eighteen gets pulled from the road and into a van with four men. What monsters, what filthy cowards! What awful creature who thinks it can do this to another human being. Grown up men who rape a defenseless girl in an act of misplaced domination. Don’t they, themselves, have mothers? Sisters? Daughters? A hart?!
I hope they have nightmares of the victim screaming, I hope they see her eyes every time they close their own. I hope they are tormented every day for the rest of their life, like she surely is.
The punishment for said crime is ridiculous! It underestimates the worth of a girl, of her life and her freedom, her peace of mind. She is ruined for life, and IF the rapist get caught (90% of all rapes are not reported), and IF he gets convicted (the police dismissed eight out of ten cases), he is sentenced for just a few years in prison even though the law opens for a sentence up to ten years (twenty one years if there are more than one rapist). The punishment for the victim is harder and longer than that for the rapist! The victim’s punishment is for life! They claim that in my country there is gender equality. But if that were true, I imagine the punishment for rape would be much harder.
I wish for a superhero. I imagine him, cape and all, going out into the night, saving my sisters and punishing the evil. I wish for humanity to grow in our cold society and for us, everyone, to take to the streets in protest of what is happing. Not just for the victims in my country (eight - to sixteen thousand every year) but all over the world. For all the women, men and children who have been robbed of their self-worth and left in shame, and for their loved ones picking up the pieces. A march against rapists who take, with no moral, something they have no right to take. Who do it hiding in the night, in cars waiting, at war using it as a weapon, in pairs of two and three, like cowards, like beats of man. Like the roaches they have become, I want them to feel not even worthy to be crushed under our shoes. How can we allow this to continue? To read about it and not care enough, to know and yet ignore the frustration and hate, the anger and the fear.
My street is unsafe for me to walk in at night. I hate the men who made it like this and the system who allowed it to continue. And I hate us for not rising up against it. For this I am sorry I am only one..
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