January 18th, 2007
Walking Down Divisoria One Morning
When you wake up, all you hear is the drone of voices in the hallway. The room is black as night, and the clock is the only indication of morning.
It has been this way for months now:
Everything in the streets is unfamiliar, and you drift aimlessly through them like cigarette smoke. You now know the feeling of somnambulists, those ghoulish sacs of misery and impending dread - you feel as if you have just recently joined their ranks. But no matter. Soon, the comfort of sleep will keep the demons at bay, long enough for a quick recharge before you go through the cycle all over again.
A recharge for what?
This old man stops you and raises his pitiful, scrawny arms up for alms, and he looks at you as if you were some godsend of ill repue. You can't help but meet his gaze, and you mull this over in your head.
Since there is no ghost that demands attention. They are fleeting, like life. The life you see around you.
But this man, in all his decrepit glory, has gone beyond the ghost-stasis around you. He is the only tangible, nay, visible object you can see for miles, and you would like to think that this feeling was returned: you wanted to believe that for him, you had become like a beacon of light from the heavens.
You come upon a conclusion: To see, in the most intrinsic sense of the word, one must establish a connection with the subject, to make the subject see the viewer as another subject. Reciprocity. Another cycle. Yin and yang. Spoon and fork.
It does not matter to you that after a few moments, you see that the old man's eyes are these clouded-over objects that have been dulled and expressionless for, at your best guess, a decade. You smile, drop ten pesos into his palm, and drift away like the haze that you have become. You are happy enough that you were able to step into the realm of reality. Even if it was for just a moment.