Earth Salvation

If you did not notice so far that I am starting this story by wielding the tool “I”. Yet, this time is an exception because this is a true story that personally happened to me; the writer. I don’t usually narrate my stories directly and announce it because the best part in reading a book is that the reader never knows what can be true and what cannot be! But as I said this simple story is an exception, and sometimes the world needs to accept exceptions.

About two years ago, I was waiting for one of my friends in the tram station. He was late as usual, and I was anticipating the tiny universe around me; the street, the people’s faces, the buildings, the sky… I noticed how this tiny area had much several worlds within its invisible walls. We were going to the gym, but he still didn’t show up, as I stared at the sun trying to anticipate the time.

Across the street and the railway, it was the other side of this tiny universe, I found an old woman; a beggar, who walked randomly, alone, not begging! She tottered while looking around, as if searching for something. She accidently found a soda can resting aside. She held it while walking, and shook it but sadly it was empty. For my surprise, she held the can and walked to the garbage, and threw it there!

At first I thought that what I saw was surely from my sheer imagination. Luckily my friend didn’t show up yet, so I drove myself toward the garbage, and looked into it, yes the can was there. This was no fiction, only the unbelievable truth.

I stood there, wondering, and analyzing. As any other writer, I was trying to understand and find a philosophical justification, or else I wouldn’t be able to do my work out well!

Is it education that affects out attitudes? I thought so. Is it our social level? I thought so too. But at that moment I’ve fell into a well of doubts and confusions. It’s when the stable ground you were always standing on, is after all only an ice edge that is about to crack at any time.

There were two ways of thinking to walk through that I’ve noticed. The first was that logic and social class had no direct effect in influencing us. But why do we learn and wear the best clothes if we carry no class in such things? Why are we so keen regarding our degrees as long as they will never change what we do? If our struggle toward knowledge and royalty was a myth, then what are we?

The other path I walked in, after I failed piercing into the first one was that this beggar considered this street as her house. Maybe she was homeless and this street was her only shelter so she longed to keep it clean. For sure this explanation soothed me more as it illuminated the first one. But still, my confusion did not flee. If this was her home, then how could we (the educated and elite), be such an intruders and pollute her home-like shelter! I still find myself guilty with each path I choose through my life. My philosophy is failing me with each thought from freeing my spirit from the cross of sin.

Thanks to God, I have been inspired to find an unexpected third path that may be a salvation for my spirit, away from the lashes of a whip or the nails of a cross. She was an old “woman”. It’s in women’s nature that they focus more on these things, they have always been the ones protecting the houses from the dust and bacteria, and now that they have got their acknowledged freedom, they are now doing this to the streets too! I liked this theory; it made my spirit float free. It made people seem innocent once again… No! Wait. It only makes the other gender free. Not mine! I am now a criminal against my gender too! In all cases and with any justification, I would have been a criminal to someone…

I heard my friend calling me. Finally he arrived. Finally he postponed my death for a few more minutes. And now, after two years, I still remember this ignored story, as simple as it is, but I failed to vanquish its secrets. Oh philosophy, you want to crucify me with all means… Accept me now. You deserve to have my death with the greatness of your secrets… Embrace me, for though I’ve always been a sinner who failed to understand, yet never abandoned the eagerness for you.