The secret world

Have you ever thought about all the things you do and places you’ve gone once. and people you mete one time for three minutes that nobody knows about? That old guy you gave a ride to that time because it was cold and looked helpless? How would you explain that if he were up not all that helpless and made you regret feeling sorry for him? Can you image the phone call from the ER when you have to tell your loved ones the reason you got mugged was because you tried to be a nice person? “Oops? His limp was fake?”, because you know better then to pick up strangers! You would never do something like that! And yet, and yet... that person needed you and you wanted to help them. We don’t get many chances to directly help other people, not physically and it doesn’t count if its your job, its not the same if you write a check or sign a petition, how often are we at the right place at the right time to actually help another person? Not often. They don’t hand out awards for it, but you don’t get rewards for little acts, you might end up in the ER one time out of a thousand, but they don’t
give plaques for giving a random anonymous stranger a ride in the cold and you can never, never tell anyone you did give a random anonymous stranger a ride because it was cold, because you shouldn’t give random, anonymous strangers rides, ever. But you did.

And how about all those places you go just that one time? That little resale store on the other side of town or that time you got bored and went to go grocery shopping in the next town. Who knows that you go there, even occasionally? If you were there and fell over with a stroke, wouldn’t your people wonder about it? “Why was s/he there? What took her/im out there?”. It would be a mystery to them and if you could tell them it was just a wild hair that took you out there, they would still wonder. It would take on all kinds of deeper meaning, why you were there and what you were doing, they would make up whole worlds of reason why you were out there. It would take on a life of its own, why you were there. People like those explanations better then the real reason. I think people want others to be more interesting then they are.


I some times think about that, when I’m far a field for no good reason. What would happen if something happened while I’m out here in the middle of nowhere? is the explanation that I wanted to see where the road went a good enough reason when I find out that the road goes nowhere to nothing and now I’m there? “Where am I?, I’m nowhere, come and get me”. Why am I here? How would I explain this? Who am I going to call? how do you give directions to nowhere?

And what about the people you meet? Those people you meet standing in line for something that is supposed to take a few minutes and ends up taking forever and you stand there and wind up talking to them because it gets uncomfortable to be standing there not saying anything and then what? You don’t know their name or anything about them but you know they are returning a game system because someone else bought it first and now this person has to takes theirs back because, because . . . you don’t know these people and suddenly they’re telling you about this son and that daughter and somebodies girlfriends kids and all the stress they are getting over gifts for them you’re privy to all their private family drama. You end up knowing things that they don’t tell each other and you suddenly have this Rosetta stone for their lives and who is going to ask you about this stuff?! The returnee ends up dead in some awful domestic violence thing and if they only knew to ask that person in line behind them in the return line, boy, they could close that case fast ...