The ungraspable. That force that drives us when our spirits are low and our convictions waver. Could it be as simple as they make it out to be in those cheesy romantic comedies? LOVE can withstand it all; can conquer it all but in the end will that be enough?
I've never really looked at my life deliberately. To be particular enough to understand what was put where, why…maybe out of something much larger? I'm young, granted, but I have seen things. I've seen them, so I asked myself how do I forget them?... perhaps even correct them.
Evil. I know that word, in fact I know that word quite well. It's a shape-shifter, but it's right there. It once looked like a dead mother. I saw it in the face of a taxi driver who once scolded a boy cleaning his window shield in the hopes to earn a cordoba. It gave back once more as repression and was hidden in the voice of a man who called telling my friend to flee the country because they knew where he lived, and then once more in a suicide.
At another time, I once watched this word through a period of 4 month. I watched it move. It moved very hard and it spat out propaganda and indoctrination. I know it was evil for how could a person that had vowed to protect its country turn against it. I saw him loose his backbone. I saw it happened. They said it was a shadow; a misshapen shadow. That's what this word did; it gave me a dark mess, and it left with a smirk.
I have cried over this word too. A lot. I cried a lot. Two days before, it had used a strike.. to protest the overprized bus fare the payment in public schools, The girl died. The friend died. They were all dead. Who cared what the strike was for?
Evil has no details. Just the ends, and they're ragged I assure you.
Good. That's a harder word to come by, but I know it too. I saw it; it looked like a bright color. It was bold and purple and sparkled with gold. I had lost something very important. I saw it in the news: the Iraqis fighting for freedom. It shined in her smile. It illuminated the streets as she helped the boy get up. It was in a classroom as they learned sign language to communicate with other. I have seen children begging for money on the streets I see them everyday always in the same place, I see the faded carton houses on my way to school and the emaciated lady outside washing her only shirt outside. I saw it at the American Nicaraguan Foundation that helped the children in the streets. I see it everyday when my sisters their half of their money to the girl standing outside our car window. I experienced it the day my friends started waking up at early ocklok on a Saturdays so that we could go bond with the orphans at Hogar Ruth.
I like to believe good is in more places than evil. Perhaps in my heart. Perhaps in everyone heart. But Good never announces itself it does not make a commotion. It is just there. Everywhere and next to you. It’s the ungraspable.
