Etiquette is the band-aid of a society with widespread empathy-deficit.
I...left to investigate their house in a low-rent neighborhood with dirt streets. One room with two windows open in the heat, burnished to silver-gray by the winds and fogs of the Minor Sea and raised on wooden posts. It smelled of fish. Their porch was a wooden box. A shed behind the house served them—and their neighbors—as privy. Inside were a fireplace, two beds shoved against opposite walls, a table, one chair, and a cupboard. There were a few baskets, one with dirty clothes, and a tin pail. I didn't see a lamp, and I didn't find candles. The only signs of food were crumbs and mouse scat. The fireplace was equipped with an iron truss, a kettle, and a pot. Under one bed, I found the leather case holding Aetref's lute. There were two, small, leather satchels, which resisted my efforts at spying, and that was the whole of their belongings and squalid life. There were no signs of female habitation or visitation.
The foliage of the beech hedgerow in May were pure optimism, bright and young. Come August they were a reverent green, as deep as the North American pines. How those leaves told the story of the seasons, the return of colour followed by the strong browns of its winter wands.
Tears rolled down, wetting every part of her cheek. Her eyes pleaded for Succor and help, albeit that she knew no one was coming. There was only darkness as her own demons haunted and strangled her. She was suffocating. In the pain of abandonment she almost forgot how to feel. She desired amnesia so that all this suffering could fade away, fade and allow memories of laughter to soothe her, to restore peace in her life.
One morning, in social study class, the teacher explained the term, “Dysfunctional families.” Marshall sat up in his desk. That description fit his family perfectly. All the hype through the years about happy families at Thanksgiving and Christmas left him empty, sad. Those two holidays were even worse for his family, and he dreaded them to heart sickness. He knew exactly what would happen. His dad would drink even more. More than once, his dad brought drinking buddies home for “thanksgiving dinner.” This “thanksgiving” dinner was a “usual” meal, with the exception that his mom said a prayer. Why? What did she or any of the family have to be thankful for? How could his mom be thankful for such confusion, and yelling and screaming? How could anyone thank a God who allowed such misery? When he was younger, Marshall had to stay at home for the long nights of discontent on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Now that he was older, he could grab his coat and hit the streets. It was cold out, and his jacket was thin. However, it was quiet in the downtown park.
Her hair flowed down her back like black ink of a tilted piece of parchment. Her eyes were fox-like and had an icy greyish green hue like the first sprouts of plants in the snow.
At every level society, from the personal to the international scale, treaties are a falsehood where a power imbalances exist; thus true peace cannot exist, only more and less violent forms of war, and this fact is key to evolving our era. Thus to rid ourselves of the money-nexus, to establish a society run with love as first principle, is a prerequisite of true peace.
Until there is equity of access to resources necessary for a comfortable and happy standard of living that respects the sanctity and rights of each person of our planet, we cannot say that we have truly learnt the lessons of all black lives matter. And in so doing, in lifting up all the poor of every ethnicity, in the giving of dignity, in the acknowledgement of their full humanity, there are the seeds of world peace. Love is always our answer. Not the soppy kind of love though. Not that. But the "I'd give my life for yours" kind of love. And that, my friends, isn't the ceiling, it's the minimum requirement.
When the exams come, remember that revision is a response, anxiety is a reaction. The more you respond rather than react, the better your results will be.
There is more to every story,
Or so I have heard them saying.
I always gaze into the infinity of the sky,
Observing the sky change its hues at different times of the day,
Seeking answers to a particular paradoxical question -
What about them?
I think in a state of haze.
Are they really happy?
Maybe we are misunderstanding everything;
Maybe they are in the wrong places;
Maybe, they want their fates to change.
Maybe, all that we perceive is them deceiving us.
Maybe, out there is an enigma
Full of anomalies and conundrums -
An obscure love story,
of Apollo and Selene.
Maybe they are in love
But can’t make it past their differences;
Maybe they are lost,
And have strayed from the path
That leads them to each other.
Maybe the dusk and dawn
are their surreal infinities;
Maybe they set and rise,
not for the world,
but for each other.
Maybe the stars glittering,
in the oblivion of the dark night,
are the tears that Selene sheds.
Maybe, Apollo makes the sun burn,
in his jealous rage,
since everyone but him can admire her grandeur.
Maybe the eclipse is the time when
One’s love overpowers the other’s
To create an amalgam of untold stories,
None of us will ever hear.
Maybe those spots on the moon are the impressions
Apollo’s lonely heart has suffered.
Maybe when the thunder sound fulminates
In the foggy, clouded sky,
It is Selene crying to the heavens, mourning in agony.
When the sun gleams through the canopies,
We rejoice, Placing it adjacent to many heavenly pleasures.
But maybe, above there, past the clouds
the two just hurt inside.
Maybe they are grieving,
Mourning wordlessly,
Alone in the wilderness of their kingdoms,
Unnerved at the thought
of how long it would take for everything to fall into place.
‘Romeo and Juliet’ was a classic literature love,
But this is so much more -
Love that is pure and heavenly;
Love that is silent,
Yet speaks out so loud and clear.
Love, not the whole world could witness.
The star that shines in the darkness is one who leads toward daylight.