Contagious Life

The Poison Of Being

The virus spreads, engaging and consuming as it deteriorates society. We eat, drink and merrily sip away at the feast laid before us. It is of no fault to the host if the bread and wine was tainted, for it is a eat or starve kind of world. The ears become mouths and swallow the poison of speech; scummy lies lick the eardrums and slide down to the stomach. A heart has no chance of survival when the blood is on a mission of destruction. As vocal repetitions of hatred infiltrate our insides, the beauty that defines us all, our individuality, becomes targets of abuse. Who or what created the virus that tears us apart is unknown. It was not our lifetimes, farther back than our fathers, but we suffer some. And some suffer more, and some do not know that they suffer, yet they die inside. When will it end?

I stayed awake night after night; life became the pixels I focused my eyes upon. Documentaries played one after another on the television set. I watched, I wrote, I documented what the documentaries had said. My laptop whirled with the consistent overworked infrastructure that like me never rested. This election season caused conflict, craziness, and filth which led me wondering how our society could have possibly let this happen. How did we become so screwed up?

Friends and family argued to the point of violence. Brothers and sisters, both from blood and bond, broke under the difference of opinion. Here I was, doubting everything I ever knew, fearing the problem was more than us. It was global and it reached back into the depths of history that never appeared in our schoolbooks. Lies to alienation, selective truths that felt the warm blanket of unity were paper thin falsehoods to make us feel better about ourselves; lies destroyed us a long long time ago.

Politics, protests, pain flashed on the screen like a morbid merry-go-round. Cause and effects clay molded into the pottery that will be buried in the sand for our future generations to uncover and discover what horrible people we truly were. I drank to numb the embarrassment, I enclosed my life inside the shell of my home surrounded by useless possession for protection, and I died a little each time a bullet was fired to end a life of someone who was blood and bones like me.

I am just one, one tiny grain of sand on coastline that conquers the earth, one unimportant fleck that is hoping to catch a ride on the wind so I may catch a glimpse of the ocean. I am disappointed at the consumer driven, want and have, broken world we have become. I am disappointed at myself for being a follower, for wanting the ocean when I could bond with the others around me and become a glass castle by the shore. Stupidly wanting more to feel satisfied, waiting to feel alive, when all we have to do is just shut out all of the noise pollution. It is time to stop following the beat of the war drums and start following the beat of the heart.

I hide inside. If I stay stationary I could survive. Riots rain anger on the streets like acid burning through the sky onto the payment. Soles were not meant to withstand the burning, and bare feet blister. Shadows walk past my windows and I flinch at the fear that someone, something is coming to take me away. Conspiracy theory suburbia, even the meter reader could be homeland security, and I am no longer secure in my home. I block out the sun with cardboard cuts, I am afraid to drink the water. I forget I am a father, I forget there is a life out there, I only prepare for the end game. I knew life would never be the same.

I was infected with a new virus, one not of ignorance but of knowledge, and the cross hairs were on me now. I prayed to God’s I never knew before, I panicked. I paced. This virus was spreading and I didn’t even recognize my own face.

I picked up the mail from the box outside my front door the day before Thanksgiving. On the top of the stack in a decorated red envelope was a letter with no return address, but the writing I recognized. I opened the beautifully detailed handmade card and inside was a picture of my beautiful daughter, her new husband at her side, he didn’t have the same skin tone as her and at first the fight of the media bit my blood but then I saw their smiles, they were happy and it wasn’t about mixed skin. The card read, “Here is our new family, adopted with open arms… Delia, Marco, and Rebekkah.” All the children so different, but the smiles just completely warmed my heart. On television, there is constant hatred and blame but on this card, happiness, nothing but pure bonded happiness.

As I held that card I felt like I found the cure for the virus, the cure for the hate, I found unconditional love. I opened the windows, I opened the doors, I opened myself, for there is fear of all the evils out there in the world, but there is no way to make castles in the sand if we are locked inside our own cells.

Smiles are contagious, love is exceptional. We are all different, all unique and beautiful, and we can all stop believing everything is hopeless and start making hope happen. We can love, unconditionally and contagiously.

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