The story of the other

Ever wondered why its sometimes so easy to listen and re-tell the sad stories of others? I sort of figured out that's why poets write their work as they can transform the sisterhood between the story and the owner into another form and the story can be anyone Else's even when they are talking about themselves.

While I speak and listen to many people's sharing their life experiences I have come to respect owning other peoples stories and experiences as mine and vice versa. This I wrote after a long train ride from Washington DC to Boston Back bay several weeks ago. I had 4 hours of free-lancing time while I waited for my train. So I decided to be curious and explore the city to "kill time". Little did I know that four hours of Killing time will be exact time of killing the false-hoods about life in the big Apple.

I grabbed a new York times newspaper and I am busy scanning through. There is the story of the boy who shot his parents and now has to rot in jail for the rest of his sorry ass life. He justifies his crime based on the fact that the parents may have been part of the reason why his drunken uncle spilled his semen and defiled his innocence. He sees no one as a protector and he had to protect himself against all that has taught him how dangerous and precarious this planet is! He did it with a gun. Three bullets fired to revenge his anger and disillusionment.

My stomach spins, churns and turns painful as I read on. The poor young life has been transfigured into an eternal inferno of distrust, pain, hate, anger and absolute insanity while his face looked so cute and innocence on the picture plastered on that front page of a New York paper.

I was wondering what really went wrong and why. And just like that, my attention to the story fades as I am jolted to cautious attention by the screeching noise of the train as it halts to a stop at Penn-station to drop and pick more busy people before snaking off to the next destination.

As the train stops, people scatter in a hurry into different directions. Everyone seems to be in their own world; some talking. some walking with their faces hang down seemingly looking like they are the kind of people that talk to themselves, some hurry and scuffle around each others shoulders as they squeeze to get a seat. No one notices any face--The picture is like a sea of moving phantoms...like a whole vast ocean of termites walking in and out of the underground holes to attend to some important queen of the colony or something of sorts.

Being a curious person by nature, I ease myself on a wooden platform to behold the spectacle and do some people-watching while waiting for my train to Boston. The story of the boy fast receding out of memory. I see people looking like their world will collapse as they hurry to the next deadline meeting--others complaining and laughing out obnoxiously at some boss they don't take so seriously. And like a nosy neighbor I was eaves-dropping and being amused, temporarily forgetting my own problems and delighting at all that's happening.

I was part of these sea of humans but felt momentarily separate and as an observer. This hypnotic phantoms some trying to get to their cars to drive home--perhaps some mad because they are going home to their desolate spouses and partners--others hurrying may be to  squeeze in an extra date at the local watering hole. But for me, I sat there just watching humanity pass in and out as an observer--people watching and grateful for that moment when I had to do nothing but to just sit and watch people do their madness.--to just look. Seated there wondering whether these collective madness is also sub-consciously the collective reason why a young boy would shoot his own parents in despair. By then I longed to be a three toed sloath than a human. Perhaps in another lifetime.

My train arrives and I had to go back to life......
Oh dear God, thy kingdom come!