Who We Are

   I don’t believe it. I just can’t. The pure concept of a “community” is, for me, just nonsense. If there were a community, any kind, they would be there to stop all atrocities and crimes from happening. But that’s not the case, is it? This world is rotting at a formidable speed and there’s nothing that can stop it. It’s just the way it is. Is it intentional or did no one see the signs we are just fucked?

 People say, often, that we live better now than others did fifty or a hundred years ago. That is obvious. Any person with half a brain, more than most people use, would know that. But I’m not talking about the comforts of life; I’m talking about people as people. We have gone down the drain and gotten worse with time. Of course, not to wonder much about it as humanity has been capable of killing itself in mass. What comes after that then?

 Yeah, yeah… “Humanity has done great things too”. Well, really? Medicine they say… Well why do you think we advance in medicine if it’s not for lengthening our lives, to be able to be more powerful, more than the bags filled with gas that we are? Medicine does not exist to make life better but to make it longer. The innocent that thinks that vaccines and medications are made to take care of the frail and hopeless, are just too innocent to see what’s really going on.

 So, what comes after we have killed so many of ourselves? Well, hate of course. People hate they are free from xenophobia, free from actual hate, senseless and insane. Well, we’re not. We all hate something or someone. We might not consider ourselves racists, but we still fear the people that oppressed us and those who we oppressed. It’s only natural, after generations that behave like animals. Now it’s us who have to be scared of the world around us, which has gotten more dangerous.

 And why is that, we may ask? Well, precisely because people in the past did so much to prove they were above others. Little stupid groups claiming they were in possession of universal truth, telling people how to live their lives, who to admire, who to loath and even what to eat, how to eat and when to eat it. Sounds insane? That’s because it is. We praise the human brain so much but the truth is our biology is so easy to influence. So much that today it’s not hard to make someone ill, make them have a headache or make them sick to their stomachs. We can even kill someone without using a real weapon. We are weak.

 The interesting thing is that we just won’t admit hoe fucked we are. People are killed all over the place, disease comes and takes a shitload of people and many are still denied the same rights as others. Nevertheless, less important “news”, that aren’t new at all, invade the papers to make us feel fear and hope at the same time. The grand media folk make us love someone and hate others. They just shift the pieces of the puzzle and make up dozens of variations on the same subject. So there’s a little bit for everyone but the truth, the real one, is always lost forever, known to no one, not even to the ones that make her disappear.

 It is true we live better than before. But that is because we have been taught what to think of society and we have learned the model we live by is just the best because they haven’t create a better one. Haven’t they? May there be something better? Who knows? We are in no capacity of knowing that because even the most “perfect” place in the world is deprived of something. And whatever it is, it makes that “community” and incomplete one.

 Take for instance rich people in a rich country. They can buy all they want but any of us know that that’s not very important at the end of the day. No, not because it doesn’t matter. Try to live life without money on this planet. No, it’s more because we don’t really fill our head with riches. We fill it with experiences and those who make us feel better are not specially attached to money.

 Many, for example, seek for love. The one true love. Most people are so enthralled with the idea of “real love” that they don’t even stop to think what that means. How do I feel love? Does it feel the same for everyone? And here’s comes the real news: no, it doesn’t. It is a fact that feelings are chemicals reactions happening in the brain. Rats can feel pleasure if we put some electrodes on it and influence the right area of its brain. Same thing can be done with humans. But feelings are more than that. Why? Because they are stored inside our heads and have consequences beyond the mere experience.

 When we love, hate or feel curiosity, we feel something. But we also create from that. A relationship is made by what you remember and what you don’t. And all of this is classified: this is good, this is bad, and this is weird. We keep it in mind and we use it as words or actions if we need it. Those are still feeling but they have stopped being only chemicals in our bodies. We keep them in there if we need to use them.

And we do. But not in a very good way. Humanity has always been very trivial. We have always, in one way or another, loved staring at shiny objects. Whether those are nice precious stones or a beautiful body, we have always idealized what it is to be human. We have grown as a species thinking we are just the best there is because we can speak and walk and conquer. But what’s the use of all of that if don’t have anything to show for ourselves?

 Yes, the discoveries. We cannot deny some humans have gone beyond themselves to explain certain things and create new objects from what nature has given us. That cannot be denied. But another fact that cannot be denied is the fact that most of us have no idea how to create and we are really not interested in it. We created religion precisely to do that. To explain what we, lazy as we are, won’t or can’t explain. Humanity doesn’t like when something cannot be explained and that’s why so many crazy theories exist. We just need to explain, even if the answer is obviously fabricated.

 Then again, we keep killing each other, just because they decided to lie to themselves with different lies that we did or because they eat differently or dress with other clothes. Or just, and we never admit this, because they live far and looks different. This would mean xenophobia but this is the real reason of many wars that humanity has gone through. Just hate, without sense or consideration.

 We fail to see that biologically we are exactly the same. And we are not special. Other creatures walk and breathe and speak. The fact that we don’t understand them doesn’t mean we are better. I won’t go to saying we are the same psychologically because that is a creation of man to explain what’s inside one’s head. And the explanations, often, are as ridiculous as the explanations the ancients have for why the sun was up there with the moon.

 No, the best we can do in this world is acknowledge that we are different, even unique, inside our heads but that we are all the same outside of them. Of course, this doesn’t bring any peace of mind to anyone but nature rarely cares about that. We are just one species on a small particle of dust in the vast universe. And we fail to realize that daily, we fail to see we don’t really matter in the broader context of time and space.

 This doesn’t mean we should just go in deep depression and die. It means we should really live, like real people would do. Let’s just not get into the lives of others and let’s try to learn from each other’s differences that reside inside our heads. If we took a moment learning about what others do in life and what they think on certain important matters (not politics, of course), we would see how similar we are, even inside our heads. That’s the surprise of it all.

 We are not unique, special or precious. We are flawed, simple and unimportant. But we are here and that’s what really matters.  

Her war

  Alicia had just taken the lives of at least ten men. But she didn't care. She had learned not to care much when it came to do what she had to do. The past had taken the lives of many people she had loved, some way or another. Who cared if even more people were killed now? The world wasn’t one to care no more. And she, Alicia Hall, wasn’t one to feel sorry anymore. She just didn’t care.

 The fight had happened just outside of the many quarantine zones. This one encircled the whole city formerly known as Panama City. As many knew, even then, Panama had been a worthy ally to the Statian cause. So much that, during the attempt of the Confederation to take the south part of the continent, they built a parallel city on the other side of the Panama Canal to ensure their troops were properly supported. They had even built a large nuclear energy complex to feed both cities with electricity.

 But no one predicted a surprise attack; done by the Southies (slang termed the Statians used to call the people living on the other side of the canal) but covered up by the Statians, calling it a “failure” of the energy station. There was an explosion and everyone got evacuated. Many people died, though but no one ever knew about any of them. The place was rapidly turned into an exclusion zone for airplanes and the whole city was barricaded and put into quarantine. The people living beyond it were left to their deeds. In other words, they were left to die to the radiation.

 That had happened almost thirty years ago. The world today was very different: the war had ravaged entire regions. Food was hard to come by and countries were not as important as they had been before. The Statians had been reduced to a mountain range and many others had done the same. Technology existed, of course, but had been improved. All innovation had stopped. Anyway, people were more worried about feeding their families than about anything else.

 Alicia herself remembered her parents and brother often. It was true that she cried every night, thinking of them. She would always remember the day she had been taken from her home by a group of Righties. Righties were people that still believed in the superiority of one race or one group of people. They were loads, as people in fear always trust the wrong folk. They ravaged towns, raped women and killed innocent people, thinking they were Vikings of sorts. They also kidnapped women to be sold as sexual slaves and that’s what had happened to Alicia.

 But she had escaped. After an awful trip across the ocean, she had been sold in New Africa, the center of the Statians country. Strangely enough, the city was located by the sea. It was the commercial center of the country. Nevertheless, most of those folk lived inland, scared of invasion. Alicia then became the slave of a renowned politician and lived in his state for two years. Then, a storm broke out and there was fighting between the Statians. She took her chance and escaped the compound, unseen.

 But the day after, when she got up to a high hill, she realized they were following her. So began a journey of many days, even months, chasing through wilderness of all types to escape her captors. Eventually, they let her flee thinking she would die in the wild but Alicia was better than that. She learned to hunt and gather fruits in the forest. The young woman had even found useful things in more deserted cities: clothing, weapons, water bottles and food.

 The food was the best, by far. People everywhere were starving and there she was, having a whole city for herself, where she could pick up anything she wanted to eat. For example, Alicia had never had a spoonful of ice cream. The first time she had some, she laughed like a little girl and ate a whole bucket of it, tasting of vanilla. The stomachache that followed was awful but she thought it wasn’t a high price to pay for such a delicious treat.

 It was in that deserted city when she first killed. A group of men in military clothes walked in the center of the city and she saw them as they dragged two women along. The women looked foreign, like Alicia. She realized they were slaved. Rage ran through her veins and in that moment, she decided to do something bold. Without giving them the chance to say a word, Alicia penetrated their camp at night and killed the four men, with a couple of knives she had grabbed from a department store.

 When she was finished, the women escaped screaming like mad, looking at her as if she had done something horrible. But she knew she was right. All those men, all those people that thought were better just because they were of some color or lived somewhere, all of them, they had to pay. So, in her time in the city, she killed no less than a hundred men. She had trained herself, alone, to use every single weapon she found. Alicia had a small flat on the top of a small building and, in a case where she kept guns, knives, axes, arrows, grenades and other instruments to kill.

 But it was after some time that she realized she had to move on. Someone would get wise and would come to hunt her. And she didn’t want to give none of those people the satisfaction to do so. So, after gathering her things, she did a tour of various stores to replenish her stash of food and ammo, as well as some technology devices. These didn’t really worked well but she needed a GPS in order to know where to run.

 She wanted bad to go back to her country but she knew that was even more dangerous than facing a buck load of army men. She would have to penetrate the Statians territory and then, somehow, board a boat back the other side. No, that was a stupid idea, filled with things that might go wrong. Instead, after looking on a paper map, she decided that her best choice was to go south, through the old border and beyond.

 At the border, precisely, she met friends for the first time. They were indigenous peoples. Alicia had never seen people so beautifully dressed, not after the devastation of the war. But the indigenous women she met told her, in signs that they wanted to preserve what was theirs. War had torn them apart but they trusted that everything would get better. Alicia wasn’t as optimistic but shared a couple of days with them before continuing south.

 It took her months to cross through jungles and devastated cities. It was incredible to see how many people had survived the war, hiding in forests and going back to the lives lived by their ancestors. They were casual hunters and some had even started to grow food again. Many volcanoes made the soil a good friend but many people ran scared when rain came of when the wind blew to strongly. They talked about La Mancha, some sort of explosion that hey had seen and had destroyed, even more than war, the land were they lived.

La Mancha was no other than the horrible stain floating over the nuclear power plant that had being blown up by the Southies. Alicia heard of the story many times, by many people, on her way to the canal. But she noticed something else too: the more she traveled, the more Statians she saw. Some of them were taken as refugees by the locals but others were in occupation of small territories.

 After crossing lake Nicaragua, Alicia was arrested by one of these Statians. The man called himself a general and said they were retaking these territories “in order to protect them, as only us have the intelligence and power to do so”. They had killed several locals and threatened to turn Alice into a slave, again. But this time she knew better. She faked compliance and started giving them all a private show but when she was almost naked, Alicia took a gun from the general and killed him. Everything turned into chaos but the locals and Alicia prevailed.

 In the midst of the fighting, Alicia realized women where also members of the Statian army. They were not many, but they were there. She realized she had no compassion for them either, thinking of how low they had gotten. They were no different than the men. Alicia realized her struggle was not again the Statians alone; it was against every person that wanted others to do as they said.

 After the skirmish, the young fighter crossed more mountains and forest until she got to the exclusion zone. It was there where she killed ten more army men. She went through several papers they were carrying and realized they had been set to check the plant and retrieve something from it. Dead as they were now, they weren’t going to finish nothing and, hopefully, it would take some time before the Statians knew what had happened to them.

 Alicia then reflected on her being there and realized something: she was alive. She inhaled and exhaled several times and then stood still, as if waiting for something to happen. Nothing. Somehow, she could breath. Was that why those men were there? Then, she heard something she had only heard from afar and in television: a helicopter. It appeared just above her, flew a bit further ahead and landed softly. From the machine came out a gorgeous women, tanned and with short black hair. She neared Alicia and she was surprised by her question.

-       Are you all right?

 The young woman nodded. The woman told her to come with her. She took Alicia’s hand and they both walked towards the helicopter. Once inside, the machine started roaring again and rose above the trees and old buildings. Alicia didn’t say a word but saw the woman besides her give her a smile.

-       My name is Rosa. You might refer us as Southies…

 But Alicia was fainting. Unknown to her, one of the soldier’s bullets had gone straight into her right lung. The last thing she saw, before falling asleep, was Rosa pulling out  a needle from a case and yelling at her. But Alicia couldn’t her a word. She was pretty tired and just let herself go.

Hate

   They all hate him. I know I do. He acts all perfect and many people around here think he is just that: perfect. I bet he hide so many thinks beneath those stupid smiles and acts of kindness. No human person is like that; we all act of cowardice or shame but never just because we are good. We just want to be it so bad we go to great lengths to transform in those idiotic beings that just spit positivity.

 He’s a fake. I just know it. He gave everyone a present on his floor last Christmas and even organized a party for them, dressed as Santa Claus. And people danced around him like dogs under the hypnosis of a really good trainer. It was disgusting how they looked, as if they were in the presence of God himself or at least one of the many saints. And he even acts the part, always helping and doing and being all over the place.

 Was he fat as a kid? Or did his parents maybe hate him? No, of course not. That wouldn’t have happened to him. People said that he would speak of his childhood often, remembering how it was all easier. Ha! Easier than now, when almost every single idiot in this office building treats him like his a deity? I doubt it. He must have been one of those insufferable jocks, full of himself, with everyone cheering around just because he looked like some guy from a magazine.

 I always try to get away from people like that. All they do is treat people like the stupidest of pets, making them do, as he wants. He doesn’t even have to ask, which is even more revolting. They just do it, as if getting the reward of his smile was more than enough to feed their children or pay their bills. I’ve heard them, women and children worshipping him in the elevator, talking about how kind and sensitive he is.

 People will believe anything if they want to, even if it kills them. They’re not smart enough to feel, to sense. I laugh in my head overtime they organized that annoying secret valentines game. They always try to pull me into that and, once, I almost agreed to do it. At the end of the day, I’m not much more smart than they are and I do work here with them. But then they spoke of how that stupid fuck was organizing it all. So I just said no and left for my house.

 Days after that I ran into him. He smiled to me! As I was a friend or one of his dogs. I just got out of the elevator and went to the bathroom, as I had no need to stand more than a minute in the presence of that cheeky smug smile, expecting me and anyone else to do the same. I want him to know that we’re not all enthralled by his physical appearance and his effort to be liked by everyone.

 He wants us all to like him? Then he should behave like any other of us, just work and shut the fuck up. We don’t wanna know about his colorful life full of beauty, and style and drama that’s only dramatic to him. Of course, he has been employee of the month so many times, no one even asks anymore about the picture they take when you win. They even said he asked fro the pictures to be removed, as he didn’t want to be disliked.

 Funny he said that, if he did say that is. Because I don’t dislike him. I don’t. Don’t ever get me wrong there. I hate him. I fully and truly hate his guts. I hate his smile, I hate those pictures of everyone’s holidays they put up once on the company’s Facebook page. Of course he was on a beach somewhere half around the world, tanned and his body ridiculously fit and lean. It was obvious that he was perfect in every fucking sense. And I hate that.

You may calm me resented or that I envy him. Maybe, I would not know if that is so. What I do know is that a fucking hate that guy and everything he stands for. He makes people feel less than they are and then he just greets them and think that will make everybody feel better because, like the Pope, he stretches the hand of all those less fortunate. And those poor devils do think that they are his friends just because he smiles at them or because they hear one of his stupid little stories.

 I’ve gone to the doctor, the shrink that is. Believe me, I’m not happy thinking about that guy every day in the office. So I went to see one of those doctors and he says I’m obsessive and I’m looking to deep into it. He tells me I should just leave it at that and live for myself. But I can, I have explained to him. How can I have time for my own when I have to go to that damn floor everyday and hear him make one of his lectures to people.

 That doctor doesn’t know I feel ill, sick to my stomach every time I hear that man’s voice. Many people say you can’t really hate, that it takes something really strong to feel that for someone. I tell you, I didn’t take a lot for me to feel what I feel. And it is hate, and I hate that feeling too. I have a life, not much but I do have it and I don’t want to spend it thinking of some male model that parades around.

 He hypnotized me once, that doctor. I thought the idea was stupid but I let him do it, as I wanted peace for once on my mind. He said, after I woke up or however you name it, that I have dangerous tendencies towards criminal behavior and that I have deep problems rooted in my brain. Fuck, what an idiot that doctor is. I could have told him that myself, awake and for a cheaper price. Of course, I never went back to see him. I don’t need people charging me for telling me the obvious.

 I want to kill him. That’s what the doc meant. And I have thought of it many times, carefully. I do it before I go to sleep or when I daydream at work. Some days ago he came to my corner and asked me for some papers. I wanted to throw up, right there. Sick isn’t it? Then, as I reached for the papers without saying a single word, I imagined punching him to his death. How beautiful would he look like with blood all over his face?

 This is not good. I know killing is a bad thing, that’s obvious. But what can I do? Every single time I see him, that strange rush invades my whole body and makes me feel like I could really do it. You know? I’ve thought several ways to do it, all of them fun to me. Of course I don’t share this with anyone. People would overreact and say I’m mass murderer or some shit like that. And the truth is I just want HIM dead. I know if I do it, I wouldn’t do it again. No need to.

 The day after he asked me for those papers, I decided I would follow him to his house. Why? Easy: before he dies I want him to tell me what lies beneath that entire perfect surface. Because, as you know, I don’t believe for a second all of those nice little details about his life and how he loves everyone and so on. I know there must be something really rotten below all that beauty. There always is. No one is perfect in this world and, the better the cover, the nastier the secrets.

 So I followed him down to the basement, because he’s one of few that comes work by car. And then it struck me: it doesn’t matter. His life, what he has or hasn’t done. I don’t give a fuck about that. What I really care about is the image he gives to the world. He might fuck children, kill whores or spread STD’s. I don’t care. I care about that fake smile he gives to everyone he meets. I want that finished.

 Yesterday, I almost went for it. I went to the bathroom to pee and he went in to and went for one of the stalls. We were alone. He was whistling. The rush came back and I knew that was the perfect moment. I could strangle him myself with my hands, seeing his soul leaving his body and his smile finally disappearing from his face. But when I decided to do it, another man came in and I just went out, breathing heavily as if I had been running.

 Then comes today. The guy announce to everyone, as if he was the president, that he will be leaving us to pursue other endeavors. I almost went crazy when I heard about it. But then, I relaxed. My life could get back to normal and I could make all these thoughts go away. Him leaving would be my cure. And the only person that would ever know about this all would be me because here, inside my head, there’s only me. And I’m thankful for that.