Fog

There is such an intense fog outside ride now that it obscures all the vision. We were driving to the movie and all that you could see were the glowing of street lights and car lights, the car lights emerging like the eyes of white-eyed demons. It was scary and beautiful. Haunting and solemn with the radio off on the drive there. It was 8:00 and the world was white with fresh snow and you could not believe how beautiful a scene you can barely see can be, but it was.

It got me thinking crazy first, thinking about what if the world suddenly was attacked by some freaky demon or creature like in all those awful movies. I always do this, imagine myself being the hero who races home, beats back the demon and locks himself inside the house and waits for the final standoff that will make him hero or martyr. It’s good for my brain, gives me cheap knock-off movie ideas that will rake in enough money to make me rich without much work. I’ve already got enough tour de force works brewing in my head due to this house…..so many that I can’t fit all in twenty anthologies….so I think a few knock-offs will help even the score.

Of course my mind regresses to the girl. Who would I call up and tell to get a gun or knife and pray that they’re alive as I race out into the darkness and risk my life to bring them to safety. Which one would I bite the bullet for. There is not enough time in the world to pick from all of them, which isn’t too bad, I don’t think I’d ever be able to. I think that I would drive from house to house trying to save all I could and that would never work for the movies, because they’d get jealous of not being the first or the last I saved. “Who did you save before ME?” To them, the order is just as important as the fact that I risked my neck to save them. That is the way with people. A bum asks for change, you give him all you’ve got and he complains that its in too small of denominations to do him any good. When one thing is satisfied, they immediately move to the next item on the list, you can’t hit them all, the list goes on forever. You save a single woman let’s say. Because saving another, no matter who was first, will make the other upset. So you save one, then you have to save them conveniently, politely, happily doing it, without making them give up any of what they had or leaving anything they did have. You have to then go off and save everyone they like, because they’ll mourn the loss and curse themselves, so you save everybody they like and you have to do it quickly and it’s still not enough. They’ll have wanted you to do something more. And this is not just women, but all people.

Doesn’t it mean anything that a person risks or goes out on a limb for you? The bum with the change, I didn’t walk on by. I gave you all I had….that’s more than you might have gotten, be happy about that. Lady, I saved you…it’s better than death, no matter who I saved before or after. Only right before the end, when things get real gritty and intense do you really notice and are thankful for every little thing. When you’re starving to death, the last piece of bread in the pantry of some friendly man is a godsend. When you’re in a burning building and the flames are about to torch you to cinders, being saved is all that counts, not that others were saved first.

People will not push themselves outside their own bodies to realize the way of others…..they are too lazy, selfish, stupid and stubborn. And you may think it odd that a man who preaches that someone should live for themselves would say such a thing, but I believe in the decency of mankind. Try and place the action and benefits on a balance of all things and if it lands anywhere in the upper three quarters, be damn thankful. I’m not promoting living by killing other people cuz it makes you happy….because that is wrong. No one has the right to take another man’s life away…though revenge is justifiable in my mind…..ergh.

My piece is aptly titled. You ever argue your beliefs believing you’re at the very end of the wing, thinking that your beliefs can’t get much more fanatical, and you know you’re right or that your ideas are good despite their extension on the wing, only to realize you’re still in the center and you just were out on the opposite wing moments before? That’s the way it always is. You say, live for yourself. That’s out there, right? No…out there was living for other people. And then out on the other end is living against other people. You have to live for yourself and the world. You have to respect what is given……that’s key….people forget that.

We forget so much. Or maybe we don’t remember it’s there because we just can’t see it yet. It’s a headlight emerging from the fog.