The Humanity Chorus
When we finally made our way into the night after "The Pianist", I only wanted to keep walking. To cherish the simple freedom of putting one foot in front of another in the squeaking February snow, to slide across ice patches, to feel the cold bite into my cheeks, to breathe the sheer joy of being alive.
Through the Metro and swiftly onto the waiting bus, all its passengers bundled in colourful variety of scarves and hats. Down the road before the steep turn, I voiced a nagging desire, "A drink? Perhaps a coffee?"
I could still taste the shared pleasure of the chocolate martini from Sunday night, but it wasn't the need for liquor that was calling. In the stifling humidity of the bus, I longed for the silence of snow and the murmur of cars dirtied by winter's onslaught. For the happy voices of fellow human beings.
I haven't yet written about the war. Here and there, I have borrowed expressions of others, but don't take my silence for non-opinion. Simply, I no longer know how to voice my thoughts on a situation which seems to border on absurdity. No, it is absurd. Whatever my opinion, the war will go ahead because of greed and the hunger for power. My government no longer speaks on my behalf - even if the Australian Senate gave a vote of no confidence against John Howard - I doubt much will change.
Many of us in this generation within the first world have not truly experienced war - what we know comes from stories, movies, documentaries and books. As the world hinges upon the war on Iraq, we forget the wars that are still fought in other places in the world today. Sri Lanka, Chechnya, Indonesia, Korea, India, Russia. And that's barely a third of the list.
Perhaps we are not well educated enough in the horrors and atrocities of war. Perhaps we are neglecting to properly teach histories and implications of wars in our schools. There's no glory to war. Only death and wasted lives.
I had closed my eyes through certain minutes of "The Pianist" so as not to have the images haunt my sleep, and later I felt ashamed at having the simple ability to do so - in months, perhaps weeks, there will be more people in this world who will no longer even have the right to live.
Head full of burning buildings, sounds of gunfire, dead bodies, bloody bodies, mutilated human flesh, I watched an attractive blonde, smiling like the sun and dressed like a gypsy, as she animatedly recounted stories to her friends, as they laughed at her antics and added some of their own. The cafe-bar didn't have gin - only beer or wine - and so I made do with a glass of quiet red. A book on the shelf to my side caught my attention - "Politics in Japan" in no-nonsense sans-serif, starkly white on a greyish spine.
The music was good, and I was in good company. A far cry from a different reality about to explode in wasted flames.
08 February 2003, Saturday, 23:54 PM
Alter ego of dandruff
Does this site look a little ugly? Try a Web standards compliant browser.
all material © 1999-2004 sniffles