In the paths of strangers.
Reflecting on the lives shaped by love, struggle, and profound resilience.
Sometimes it was just a split second of eye contact, but that’s all he needed. A connection just long enough for a kind of read, like braille for his intuition.
He saw a woman whose furtive gaze reminded him of a caged bird that would not fly away even when the door was left open. He went back in time to this stranger’s infancy, where he saw her mother and father hold her in their arms, full of fear and wonder about how they were gonna make it all work. These new parents looked at their daughter, seeing their own faces, and those of their own parents’ revealed in the likeness of the newborn. Inflated with a sense of stern obligation, they charted a course to rectify the chaos and the suffering from their own formative years and all that they had grown to despise. They would become intolerant of anything that resembled the unspeakable traumas of their past, and in the harsh light of their love, different agonies and disappointments sprouted. Admonishments and violent humiliations slowly choked the spontaneous and airy spirit of their daughter and she became obedient and listless. Like her impeccably polished shoes – you’d never know unless you really knew that the exterior shine masked depths of anguish.
One by one, he’d unpack the hidden layers of the people whose paths he crossed, and the stories rang out like church bells at noon. Each iteration of life, every element of sentience vibrating like notes in a dramatic musical score.
What he had seen in his mind’s eye, as vivid as it seemed to him, likely bore no resemblance to the lives these strangers actually lived. It’s possible that it was all just fanciful self-indulgence. Perhaps he was projecting his own stories outward, and every hapless passerby became a mirror to his personal narratives.
Whatever the reality, he believed that everyone, without exception, had fought many battles to get to this point in life, and in the moment, he loved each of them profoundly. He also recognized that many of those battles were still raging.
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When you told the story of the girl whose parents smothered her spirit, I was reminded of that old Beatles tune "She's Leaving Home", would make a perfect soundtrack to that story.
I enjoy making up little life stories for people whenever I am stuck waiting in a public place, it's a nice way to pass the time. I would assume, after reading this story, you do the same 🙂
Much beautiful imagery here in this short piece.