Fourth Page

 

Fog. Foggy dawn. It’s curious to me that fog excels the light while blurring it. Lamps cover more but in a less clear way. Sun is not shining yet at all. Somebody got an exercise machine. I can hear the cycling sound beating. There’s a shape walking by, and by the light that comes out of his cigarette,  I could see it was a man taking a drag. Crickets, I hear some. The rhythm is led by the exercise machine. Now I’m inside the apartment, hearing the sound of the water flowing through the pipes. Somebody is taking a shower, I guess. Voices. Voices behind the wall, two female voices. It’s still early. Monday: a new week of expectations. Is there a word in English language for the opposite? Let’s say I do not want any expectations. It’s not unexpected, it’s more like, for this case; dis-expected. I would like to dis-expect some of my worries, at least the upcoming ones, those not yet turned into actual problems. Please, don’t come! First job, checked. Second job, about to start. The day is fine. Sky looks nice, everything seems good for a Monday afternoon. It should be easy. Good music is making me company. Let’s enjoy it. At the end, it wasn’t that good but I can say it was fine, I mean, regardless of the distance, I did it in a good pace. Black dawn. No fog today, just darkness and engines running. I dreamed about some people, people I know. People whose ultimate decisions got me thinking. I thought of this great book: The unbearable lightness of being. I don’t know.  It’s not something we feel like we want to state, but there is some certainty on such an angle: determination is often thriven at random; by chance. Planning looks great on companies’ meetings and self-help books, but our true will grows stronger, in so many ways, and at so many times, by the appetite of the sudden. Let’s go, let’s do it. Tomorrow we’ll see! And tomorrow passes, over and over, to a point that I need to see it as a plan: a plan I never made, but it makes sense using it as the storyboard of this life I’ve chosen… In other words: I never got to the how of such a what, therefore I better work on my why. But when why is what with no how, or how is why with no what; how does what matter without why? I’m wondering. It rained. It rained during the second job. Tiring. Incomplete.  Let’s see what comes from oneiric. Actually it was a weird dream: there was a young guy; a janitor, on duty, who I asked for something in the pool to fix. He gave me that look you give when someone is wrong, saying something wrong, you think he’s stupid, or didn’t go to school, or perhaps that look immigrants get from a gringo when we try to express ourselves in English. In my country we say, if translated: the guy wrinkled his face. In Venezuela you wrinkle your face before a situation is not common to you and it sort of bothers you. Like the beggar on the street, who approaches with a story of misfortunes just to ask for money at the end of it. I wrinkle my face right away. Well. That’s the look the guy gave me,  or so I thought, because,  to be honest, we never see actual faces; what we see is more like what we interpret. And yes,  I got mad in the dream, I got mad, and for some reason,  I was bigger than him, so I stepped on, pretty close, and intimidated him. I don’t intimidate anybody in the awake world. I guess that happens because it’s my dream. So I did it, and he felt miserable by my claim. The next scenario, I remember it as myself trespassing somebody’s property to get, I guess it was a toy, for my son. The owner of the property: some shape with no face, came close and the janitor guy from the previous scene, talked to him on by my behalf and explained the owner whatever reason I may have had, and which I have no idea of. I remember we all shook hands, then I woke up before the alarm. That was two days ago. Now I’m waiting for the clock to reach eleven thirty five to approach myself to the break room. I have pasta. I love pasta. I think Venezuelans love pasta in general.  Last night I had a great time. It was my mother’s birthday.  Having hear around gives me hope. When we study in English we learn this expression: make ends meet. Let’s see how it goes. I don’t see it at the moment. In Venezuela, when people have hope, despite of some overwhelming scenario, we say: cualquier culo echa sangre, and it works like a mantra. Cold morning. Not Foggy. Actually it’s not that cold, it’s just colder than all these days before. Summer is coming to end. Perhaps it’s already over, and sunny afternoons are just a prelude for a see you next year. How positive do we get to be, to state that we’ll do this or that, or see whoever we say we’ll see, in a future time? Where does that confidence come from? From routines,  maybe? And what about when it’s not a routine? It might be a farewell.  Farewell is there, like and entity. An uninvited entity for some, but not for all, and moreover,  not for both; assuming that this is about a matter of two. A guy who works with me asked me, I was telling him some story from a past time and, now that I’m writing it, it occurs to me that a past time is in way a past life, another life, a life gone. I’ve come to think that those past life memories we tend to hesitate believe in, they might be in fact about  immigrants; immigrants’ lives, an immigrant telling something where he came from. Different languages meet halfway and I’m not even sure if what I’m writing here is actually what I want to say but, I’ll be more than pleased with our halfway encounter. So the guy asked me, right after finishing my story, what happened to Venezuela? I didn’t tell him this much, but I feel like telling a bit more here, not without pointing out,  that this is what I think, and that everyone has the right to agree or not, in fact, it might be better if there are disagreements.  Disagreements will take us to a better understanding.  So here I go: I want to call them factors of power; they are primarily two: The Clergy and The Oligarchy. The first one is formed by the church, which is an important political arm there, and the second one, by the aristocracy. I believe those factors have been in control since we were part of Spain. With time,  those factors came up with a third one: The Military force, and with such, it came the republic. As a republic, it was ruled for many years by the three factors. In my perception, it remained as it until half of the twentieth century, more or less; after that, when the democracy was established, and so the unions, this last one, as I see it, became the fourth factor of power. Everyone else was, in a way, a servant of the power structure. Every single chairman-like official in the government was promoted by any of the factors through political parties. That worked for a while. Of course, there were riots, laws, media influence, but in general, it worked out for many. Until bankers, media owners, and some other rich people who were not part of the aristocracy, decided to seize a place in structure of power. The first step was the division of the unions: teachers, police men, nurses, and a lot of workers, started feeling unrepresented.  The next move was… a hero, an outsider, and, to me, that’s how Chávez became famous.  He was the hero that this emerging power needed. So they made him a politician, and on top of that, they made him the alternative of the unionized. I believe some, let’s call them, deserters from the former factors, joint this new movement, knowing there was a lot of money and left wing agenda behind it. So everything got set, and Chávez became president and got all the support he needed to promote a new constitution, and therefore a new structure of power. Former factors got their share still. It was a transition. We never got the chance to choose. We never had it, actually. And the purge began… new ministries, laws, exchange control, expropriations, and all the things that made six million people leave their homes and lives, to start over where nothing previously done seems to be considered. There are millions of stories to pick: hunger, crime, threats, brutality,  nepotism,  corruption, everybody has something to say. I have my story, our story, we all have it: at the hospital, in the neighborhood,  while driving. There are too many. Too many voices silenced by routines in warehouses and social media feeds. Too many stories hidden behind smiles and cool poses. A transcultural era, for many, and still in disguise.