Like a venomous Snake

Last night I had an interesting conversation with Courtney’s friend, Richard. Our beloved place reeked of fermented alcohol vapors, exhuming perhaps from the intoxicated bodies of Richard and Courtney, and the baby was crying his lungs out in the bedroom, and there were no beers in the fridge. I decided to, first, pick the baby up and lull him back to sleep, then stepped out and bought me a few beers. Richard chipped in; apparently, he had also brought two bottles of wine which they had already drank and offered to pay for the beers I bought. They had left me some chicken in the fridge from the takeout Richie had brought earlier. Courtney fell asleep sitting on the chair, head down execution style. Her hair was a mob of fibers covering her face, falling down her shoulders, sprouting over her milky skin. It kind of made her a surreal and macabre spectacle, as if her personality had slipped into oblivion, leaving behind a benevolent zombie-like figurine rid of the warmth and animated self that characterizes her in sobriety. It was almost perverse seeing her on this dark shade of light, seeing how spirits often carve a caricature out of the stout mold of her chiseled character, dimming its torrent of light into a shadowy specter. How something as lowly could fly so high, and how something that once baffled me now made me cautious. Jealousy has diminished along a story now depicting additional tiny characters, like our son, Julian. Now I crave seeing him smile back at me, feeling his fragile and yet sturdy miniscule body cling to my embrace more than the carnal avowal of desire. For years, you read scientific matters on the subject of “love”, how people feel this immense attraction towards one another with the sole purpose of procreation at hand. “When are you going to be healed down there” I tease her, as her vagina was partially incised in order to facilitate Julian’s head coming out. I filmed him from an angle that allowed the full vision of his head and his subsequent slippery body shoot right thereafter like a projectile. I watch it from time to time, and the conversation had shifted towards parenting. How, I argue, it is not about entitlements when it comes to relatives and friends. It’s simply about how people in your life want to be an integral part of it and how some others, of similar rank and lineage, don’t. If suddenly (if only for the purpose of illustration, since it is obvious to me that people we like, we like for good, and those we don’t, well, nothing can’t change it) someone I am fond of starts to behave in an awkward, hurtful way, then I’d just sever that connection. I mean, don’t we usually have problematic people in our lives and people we’d want to be there to celebrate us, if the opportunity merits it! Don’t we have in our lives people who are rather happier than not to be around us, making us feel as if we really mattered to them even though we know we matter to ourselves? It’s good to be reminded from time to time of all the good we go about causing in the world, and if such isn’t the case, then it’s time to get busy planting the seeds of empathy and cultivating our bonds. It’s not that I don’t love my mother or that I hate my father, it’s more that no matter how much time I spend doing either doesn’t really nurture my soul. I reserve the right to reject out of my most inner circle those who don’t share in my values, without the need to demonize them. I don’t hold grudges, and I don’t condone abusive archetypes. No good deed goes unpunished, and no punishment is without merit. You learn that certain people, regardless of their incumbent nature, can cause nothing but harm. If you see a poisonous snake, you either kill it or stay the heck out of its way. I simply choose the latter. And I don’t have to rationalize my choice; I don’t go about slandering their character. I don’t get into the bad habit of thinking that I need to teach anyone a great lesson. My lesson, it took time to learn, and it still takes a lot of me to implement it as a vision. Why would I think that it may be something that some nemesis of mine might adopt out of curiosity? No, people do not change and we don’t get very far thinking that one day a situation may miraculously turn out for the better without a proper cause, without applying first strategic thinking and bring about the right tools in order to remedy it. Like a venomous vermin, I simply keep my distance and may even admire its lethal weaponry from afar.