I am but scum

If God did exist how disappointed he would have been at the world today. I know I was. I was and all I really am to the world is the old smelly tin-can woman.

Tin-can woman they called me. I sleep where all the homeless women sleep and collect garbage for a living. Garbage and tin-cans, only because collecting tin-cans pay me enough for a little meal at the end of the day. I don’t think I remember my name, not really, or is it that I am ashamed to say it because of the way they look at me, I rather not have a name. I rather be called the tin-can woman.

The day began the same as every other day except I started out later than usual. The lady who slept in the box next to mine had stolen my canvas bag and I had to look for another. It was a good hour before I found one in the bin nearby and then I had to stitch one of the corners together - thank goodness for the old sewing kit I found two days ago.

By the time I was done someone else would already have picked up those beer cans by the main street. Early birds always got those, easy. I would have just had to wait and linger along the streets for a bit. I hate doing that, too many dirty disapproving looks from passer-bys. Dirty looks I was so used to. I know all I am is the tin-can woman. The old lady who picks up trash.

I lingered a while at this particular bin and peered inside. I heard a voice of a mother disapprovingly telling her son he needed to study hard, or else he’d end up like me, scum. Scum. I thought about that word for a moment or two and wondered what it would have been like if I weren’t born scum before a boy threw his coke can into the bin and spat at me.

I hardly get surprised at acts like that, most often I wonder what it would be like to live in the world where not being spat at is the norm but I had no right. I hadn’t even the right to get angry, after all I was scum. Maybe I deserve to be spat on. I slowly picked up the coke can and put it into the canvas bag before walking off to the next bin.

I think it was about one in the afternoon when I stopped by the hardware store. The trashcan outside the hardware store was always filled with goodies. I snuck a look at the lady at the cashier who caught my eye before turning to look away. I heard her call out a name repeatedly before grumbling when no answer came. I looked into the bin collected a few bric-a-bracs and then moved on slowly.

I reached the next street and felt a little peculiar. A white van drove past me speedily and I walked on a little and found people dispersed in a funny manner, most with nervous looks on their faces. Children seemed to stop and linger looking back while their parents pull them along. I trudged along nervously and dragged my canvas bag along and noticed a small lump lying on the road. I crept up slowly.

And then I saw her, the tiny little girl on the street. Bleeding from her eyes, nose, mouth and the back of her head. Her legs were crushed, swollen and badly bruised, and her head was turning frantically as she squirmed, unable to move. She was silent though, very silent and I stood and stared for a while unsure whether I should touch her with my dirty fingers. Two men walked past nervously without even looking at her, and a boy with his mother followed suit. The boy stopped and pointed at the girl only to be shouted at and dragged away. My heart began to fill with a certain sadness for the girl. I remembered the stories my grandmother used to tell me about needing to be helpful, and to give, and I don’t think these people have read those stories, I guess they never had the same grandmother.

A man in a van stuck his head out of the window and shouted for people to get out of the way and so I moved away thinking that finally someone would pick her up but nothing crushed me more than the next sight. He picked up speed and rolled the wheels of his van over her, first the front wheels, and then the back. He drove off without looking back. I stood and stared in shock. Was this how the non-scums of the world treated others. I let go of my half-filled canvas bag and moved as quick as I can to the little girl’s side. Her body was small, crushed and I was too scared to lift her up, but I had to and so I slid my arms underneath her.

Tears filled my eyes as I picked her up as her small voice repetitively called out, mummy, pain. Mummy, pain. Mummy, pain.

I began to lay her down on the sidewalk when a man came out of his shop with a broom and shoo-ed us away, I carried her, now my clothes drenched in her blood, and lay her down again in front of a closed store. Her fading voice continued to call our for her mother and my heart began racing as I ran from shop to shop seeking help. I was turned away, from shop to shop, and passer by to passer by. I went on to the next street, and stopped in front of the hardware store. The lady at the cashier looked up and turned away. I stood outside the shop and called out to her for help, and she turned back to look at me. I began telling her what had happened and I pleaded for her to help, at least take the girl to the hospital.

She stopped me and asked me to repeat myself slowly. She began screaming out a name frantically as she turned to look behind her. Blood drew from her face and she began yelling the name out louder, to which there was no answer. She began screaming out  another name. A male voice responded and a man, who I guessed was her husband came out and after hearing her explanation quietly followed me.

Everything went silent after that. I watched his face go pale when he saw the little girl. He shivered a little and ground his teeth and clenched his jaws. I watched him as he picked up the little girl very gently, and gestured for me to follow him. I followed. I watched him as he ran and got into the taxi, and I watched him as he lay her down on the stretcher, silently. I watched him pick up the receiver of  the pay phone to call his wife. I watched him shout the name of the hospital into the phone and slammed it down before he walked out for a cigarette.

I found a seat and sat quietly and unsure. He proceeded to the reception and enquired where the closest police station was. I watched as he came to stand in front of me saying the word police before he looked toward his wife who was approaching frantically. He greeted her coldly before shouting impatiently at her pointing at the operating theatre and she looked nervously around the hospital hoping no one noticed. She burst out crying and he turned away. He turned back to shout at her, loudly, pointing at her with his shaking index finger, you were supposed to watch her. You were supposed to watch her.

The energy drained from her and she swayed a little before stepping back with her right foot to stabilise herself. I watched her turn away weakly and scanned the room for a seat before catching my eye. She approached me and sat in the seat beside me. I sat quietly before I heard her say, I am in pain, pain, pain.
She turned to look me in the eye and whispered quietly asking me if her little girl had said anything to me. I told her what I heard her, she said mummy, pain, mummy, pain, mummy, pain. That was all? she asked. She just learnt to say the word pain, she whispered. I nodded, that was all she said.

Tears streamed down her face, and she took my hand as we sat silently, waiting. The clock on the wall ticked loudly and my heart sunk to my stomach. My body, began to ache deep inside. In that moment I realised I was hugely disappointment and it hurt me. I was hugely disappointed in the world around me and as I replayed my years of my life as the tin-can woman with the cruel words, and spit, and disapproving stares, I stopped wondering what it was like living in a world where being spat at was not a norm. I was secretly comforted by the fact that I was cast out, and I was suddenly glad I was not one of them. 

Something had shifted. 

The cruel words and spit had separated me from the cruel cruel world and I was thankful that to them I was but scum.

Race you to the end

She looked up at him and because her anger was drowned out by her shock, she was speechless. She stared blankly at his chiseled face and got up from her face down position on the floor. He was laughing, smiling at his achievement, and she could not believe what he had just done.

"Race you to the end," he said, "I will even give you a head start." She ran to the end of the corridor and as she approached the end she felt him grabbing her ankles and pulling her left leg from under her. Unbelief and shock caused her to freeze and she fell face down onto the ground as he raced past her and proudly chimed, "I won." It was hardly an action commendable. Especially not by a man who professes that he loves you, dearly. As she studied the pleased expression on his face it hit her that he could not have loved her all that dearly. Probably not even at all.

Her thoughts raced and the seeds of disgust that had been planted a while rocked back and forth as if germinating. She recalled the time when he bumped into her on the street where she was chatting to a friend, and he, to get her attention pulled her pony tail so hard that her head jerked backwards. Her friend was very taken aback by his brashness, and until that day thought she was the only one who thought him rude, obnoxious and very haughty. It was not until that day she shared her disgust, and her friend's disapproval of him as a friend, not to mention as a boyfriend, was thick and strong. There was no way, according to her, anyone could trust him to care for another. Disgust.

He seemed to throw his weight around, and her disgust of him grew deeper. As she got up to follow him down the stairs, contempt swelled up within her. She was a strong girl, one with character and personality that is until she met him. He managed to suck all that is her, out of her as he shakes his head at her flaws. She studied his beaming smile, so proud of himself, and it hit her he could not have loved her all that dearly, probably not even at all. Her disgust welled up enough to push her diaphragms outwards and fill her lungs. Suffocating.

She choked a little and tried to concentrate on the words coming out of his mouth, just so she could respond appropriately. They seated, ordered their meal and he talked on until the meal arrived. He said grace, and during grace muttered how thankful he was for his intelligence. She was unsure of whether it was a joke. He looked serious enough. She never doubted his intelligence, until he dared muttered such a prayer. It was almost as if he said it just to tell her how superior his mind was to her, a condescendment. The warped view she had of him begin to straighten out, and she begin to see underneath his display of chivalry.

Yes, it was with such an exhibit of chivalry that he went after her. Fierce and with such fervour. So much so that she believed he really was capable of loving and caring, and she, afraid of ruining a boy who had so openly and willingly professed an affection accepted his favour each time. Little did she know her incapability of saying no to that boy showed him he could walk all over her. It was with a lack of a no that started their short romance. And short it was, for a little less than a month later, he seemed to willingly and charitably give out seeds. Seeds that spawned disgust.

It was not until he raced her to the end that her eyes were willing to see. She tried to work it, of course she did, but there was another incident that had fed those seeds like luscious fat fertiliser. She recalled that tight slap he had distastefully placed on her right cheek. That episode began with a certain dinner he refused to get to, which she went alone, and upon returning found she was locked out of her own apartment. Hers not his. Fuming with anger she banged and screamed and when he opened it he challenged her. "Slap me if you are really that angry," was the remark. She did, and upon doing so found his palm on her cheek. She gasped, and he with such derision justified it immediately. "You slapped me first."

She looked at him and because her anger was drowned out by her shock, she was speechless. She stared blankly at his chiseled face and walked past him into her apartment. Her anger, instead of being expressed snuggled comfortably at the bottom of her heart and as she looked at his satisfied face  laughing, smiling at his achievement, and she could not believe what he had just done. He could not have loved her all that dearly, probably not even at all. His words and their promise shrunk and suddenly she regretted not rejecting his advances. She need not have felt so bad. His words and actions were in complete contradiction. She stared at his face in disbelief. She had never felt so cheated.

As her memory encouraged the seeds of disgust to take root and sprout she found she could not continue the mindless conversation they were having. Her food seemed to tighten into a ball at the bottom of her stomach and it began pushing its way back up to the end of her throat. She gagged. Almost vomited. She screwed her nose in disgust and in that moment realised that she despised him. Her disgust was clear as she acknowledged it. She accepted her realisation and at that point, there and then chose. It was from that point she decided she despised him.

She looked him in the eye as she set down her spoon and got up. She did not need to be bound by her fear of hurting a boy with a tender heart. There was no need. She smiled her sweetest smile and said to him loud and clear, "no, actually, I won." It was a triumphant note indeed and it was on that triumphant note she walked out and with such gusto too. She was glad for she was the first. First to reach the end of the horrid relationship.

a nice reminder on change of perspectives from David Foster Wallace...

"Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you're "supposed to" think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it, because it's hard, it takes will and mental effort, and if you're like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat-out won't want to. But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-lady who just screamed at her little child in the checkout line -- maybe she's not usually like this; maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who's dying of bone cancer, or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the Motor Vehicles Dept. who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a nightmarish red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible -- it just depends on what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important -- if you want to operate on your default-setting -- then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying. But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars -- compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship...

Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things -- if they are where you tap real meaning in life -- then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already -- it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power -- you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart -- you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on. 

Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race" -- the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.

I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational. What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth with a whole lot of rhetorical bullshit pared away. Obviously, you can think of it whatever you wish. But please don't dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness -- awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: "This is water, this is water." It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out."

Full text of David Foster Wallace's speech on WSJ.com

stargazer stargazer

She stared at the page of that Sunday paper. The picture on the page pulled heavily and she was certain she knew him. She methodically went through the faces that came through her florist shop over the past few days and her searching stopped at last Saturday as she replayed the day in her head.


It was one of those mornings, she had gotten up early before sunrise and decided to take a morning walk down by the harbour. It was still greyish-blue outside and it was hard to tell whether or not it would begin to rain so she put on her trench coat and her hat before setting out.


The air was rather crisp and fresh, and was rather rich with the smell from the pine forest that were in view on the other side of the water. She stood a while on the bench by the harbour and watched while the coffee van set up shop. Ryan and Mae, the couple that owned the coffee-breakfast van had just parked and Ryan shouted out a cheerful good morning to her as he arranged the weekend paper along the mobile shelves by the side of the van. 


She walked towards the van as Mae toasted the almond toast she would usually buy to go with her coffee. Mae smiled as she approached and begun pouring them both a cup of coffee. She often accompanied Mae for a morning coffee as they watched the sun rise over the harbour. The sun was slow to rise this morning, but the blue in the sky began to take over as the grey dispersed a little. They sipped their morning coffee and had their almond toasts.


She looked up at Mae whose face turned a wistful sort of shade. The conversation had turned somewhat in that direction and Mae was contemplating her statement, or more like a word. Mae had asked her what she wanted to do while she was in one of her moods and she replied, I want to resonate. That statement, and the wistfulness by which she said it made Mae think. She left Mae in her contemplative mood as she picked up the Saturday paper before walking home to get ready.


She did really want to resonate. She was that sort. She was that sort who wanted to shake and bend and break because she was that sort that believed that was what people needed. She was a beautiful soul Maya, fiery and hopeful both at the same time, and she really would make it her mission to make the world feel again, with all that she could. 


She paused at that memory, the week had been a bad one, where she had been intolerant and impatient at the ugliness of society. She often felt the world ought to turn the right side up. She sighed and read the words that accompanied the picture of the man who brought her to the memory of that conversation. The words she were reading compelled her to go on jogging that memory of hers. 


She was having a rather lazy Saturday, thinking of the things she would rather do apart from arranging flowers, sorting out deliveries, and organising the books. She took out her journal and began scribbling some thoughts when he walked in. The face in the paper. 


She thought there was something odd about him and was extra attentive. She watched as he scanned the shop and mumbled to her asking if she had any stargazer lilies. She searched his face as she asked if there were a colour he was after. White, white, he answered quickly avoiding any eye contact. She hopped off her stool to lead him to the storage fridge at the back of the shop. There were about 27 stalks of stargazer lilies left and he picked up one and quietly put it back down. He needed more he remarked, but he would take all 27, and would pick them up later that evening. 


She looked at the man, he was nervous and awkward yet somewhat calm, sort of resolute. There was a calm resolve about him and she caught his eye and searched it. It was a little sad, and a little distant. He made a weak joke and she smiled. He smiled a little, a crooked sort of smile. If he were to clean up a little, he might have even been charming, she thought. She gathered the stalks and set them aside while he mumbled some words she could not catch.


She asked if there were a particular arrangement he would like, and he said, any thing that would be suitable for his stage. He asked for a pencil and a piece of paper so he could roughly draw the stage he meant. She asked if he'd like some coffee and he nodded. She poured him a cup and asked him if there were any reasons he chose stargazer lilies.


He looked at her rather awkwardly and said maybe it would resonate, he thought it may have been his last concert and he wanted to leave a thought. She frowned a little at that word, it seemed like it was word of the day, resonate, and she looked at him. He shrugged, and after a bit of silence said he liked the thought of purity and innocence the flower gave out, the way the lily looked up at the sky was almost as if it looked up hopefully, longing for that purity, that innocence, and for the lily, the white stargazer lily, the stature of it, it was as if the stars saw, and heard its wishful prayer.


She absorbed his bursts of words, and then nodded during the silent pauses. Long silent pauses. He was contemplative, wishful and she felt a pang of sadness for him. Something was odd about him, she thought and she felt the need to listen, between the words. She opened the door to him that afternoon, and allowed him, his words, his presence, his face to burden her heavy heart. She felt it necessary. She felt she should allow him to share his little world, and vibrate within her.


My music only gets thinner, he remarked. She was puzzled by that statement, but did not push him to explain. Thinner. She sipped her coffee and tried to lighten his spirits, but it seemed in vain. His soul was sort of resolute. Sort of given in to the, this is the way it is, explanation that was often forced down its throat. When he left that afternoon, she put her heart into that flower arrangement, and she did not know why, but her heavy heart wept for the pale soul that walked in and asked for stargazer lilies that morning. 


She took another sip of her coffee and continued reading the paper. The conversation between him and her was more relevant today than it was last week. She waited till after lunch and retrieved a stalk of stargazer lily from the back. She closed her little florist shop and turned to walk down towards the park. The paper had said there would be a memorial for him there.


His words burnt a little deeper as she looked into the faces of his grieved fans, there were many, mostly teenagers at the park singing to his music on their little portable radios. She had never heard a word of his music, not until today, and she smiled a little. He was definitely liked much.


Sometimes I do wish I can un-experience my experiences, he had said. She wondered about what sort of experiences he had wished to undo. What experiences that may have wounded his soul so deeply he would think ending his life would free it. Death to him seemed a sort of release. His soul, maybe would be able to float back upwards without the weight of his body. She understood his words now. She recalled his sad eyes.


She walked towards the picture of him in the middle of the park and set down the stalk of lily while looking into his eyes. Those who did not hear him, would have heard him today, and many will search his life for the why.


She went straight to the record store and got his first and his final record. As she listened closely she heard him. She heard the deep deep bass note, sort of like the bass string on the bass, that once plucked would vibrate for a long time after. The note that would often leave a hollowness in the music once it is gone. It is that deep vibration, that resonates, and of course until someone else resonates, this music would sadly only get thinner.


She sighed and her mood was back to the wistful, contemplative one the week before. She allowed the day to end and woke up early the next morning for her coffee with almond toast as she sat to tell Mae about the man with sad eyes.


I know him, said Mae. He once said that teenage angst had served him well but now he's bored and old. They laughed a sad laugh, he was only 27, old and bored? Guess he was unable to see beyond the fog. If only he had looked up, like his stargazer lily.


I guess he was a dreamer, just like us Mae, she said. But he was a frustrated dreamer, he just could not see that the world he dreamt up would never be and he just needed to make the best of this one. The world could never be perfect.


Mae smiled, it was a pretty arrangement, she said after a long silence. There in the paper was the picture of the man's last concert, and in the centre of the stage was Maya's arrangement of the 27 stargazer lilies. She smiled. Well if there was any consolation, her lilies did what he wanted them to do. They resonated alright, at least they resonated within her. He resonated.

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Oscar Wilde

Ideal Reality....

I live in two conflicting worlds, and when I stand looking out the balcony I see two scenes. The concrete buildings of the condominiums around me, and the far away hills that roll its way around the country, reflective of its own true beauty. The country I live in is full of conflicts, and as it goes ahead towards ambition and development, it forgets its identity, stripping itself into a state of insecurity, going back and forth fighting within herself for a sense of who she is. She runs in circles...sadly.

The way she has to go, she thinks, is to allow herself to be adorned with architecture, some statelier than others, some disgraceful, and allow herself to be tricked into thinking she wants, so badly, a certain sense of recognition, for what - her economic success, or transformation? She runs, she chases, she hopes for a sense of place. She makes brash statements, reflective of her eagerness to put up a face. In reality, she is but a confused girl, caught between two conflicting worlds, the world of the far away hills, and the concrete.

Her brains are scattered, with confused leaders and no transparent intentions, or clear ambitions. Policies are not concrete, do they exist? She is not aware, of her own purpose, her own missions, her own strengths, her own self. So she floats, reacting, towards all around her, her mother, now old and yet she is always trying to prove herself to her, her sister, smaller yet stronger, disciplined to whom she tries to show a sense of strength over yet fails. Her faraway friend down below she aspires to, for she is beautiful and quiet in her own ways, yet unwavering in what she is in the world for.

The bullies around her, often wrapping their own agendas in sugar, and dressed in pretense of goodwill but in fact they are just trying to get their way and move forward. Often boasting their achievements which after some years prove to be but nothing. The selfish ones, they move forward in their own agenda, without caring. And her body, her body threatens to fail those who live within her.  Her people are beautiful, with their own strengths, yet caught up, to fall into the depths of...shallowness, those who are not are lost in an identity crisis.

I live in two conflicting worlds. In the mornings I feel closer to something other than the concrete. Dreams are realities, and I feel I can skip, fly, jump to heaven which is but a step away. The sun is bright and shining, and I can do just about anything, people are loving, empowering, and I am free. But I get into my car, and walk on the streets towards work, and hear the steel doors roll down shut. And I am stuck inside in the cold, and unable to fly. Caught within webs of someone else's agenda. I am caught between my ideals and my reality. So daily I fight. And hopefully one day, my ideals, get closer to becoming a reality.

I look out at her rather attractive face, and want to tell her she is beautiful. I wish she would embrace with a quiet confidence her own true beauty, and grow, the way she will, forward, with strength. I hope her brains wake up and recognise the very beauty of her and move her the right way. Until then, we all live daily, with a bit of heartache, a bit of discomfort for we are all caught between her reality, and her ideals.

How can they be reconciled?