Stories and News No. 779
A man emerges from the sea.
A few steps and he is on the land.
Yes, a few steps.
Because this is the true distance.
Another man is coming on the shore.
From the inside.
In an instant they are close.
Sure, instant.
Because this is the time that really matters.
"Who are you?" the latter asks.
"I am a refugee."
"Please to meet you", the other replies.
"Please to meet you? Is this a joke?"
"No, it is not. Why do you ask me that?"
"Because I never thought that..."
"Look, I stop you immediately, I know what you mean. Maybe you are thinking that this is not your land, that it belongs to us, but it's a lie. I don’t know where you has read or heard about it, but we are all squatters, here, from birth, by definition. Our so-called nations are built on stolen lands, on the extermination of the natives, on the exploitation of natural resources that we can only enjoy in a high-definition video on Youtube..."
"Yes, I know that too, but there's also this thing..."
"Terrorist? This is what you were going to say? Listen, do you seem possible that the rest of us can accuse anyone of having actually caused terror or just having the intentions? We are the masters of fear, we are the lords of the nightmare, the mother of all human phobias. Since many generations we teach our children to fear before love, to distrust before hope, to marginalize before understand. And we learned the lesson so well being obsessed with projecting an image of ourselves on others, confident that they are ugly as we do."
"I understand, but there is also the problem of..."
"Religion, I see, is known stuff. Maybe you read about our mysterious aversion to other beliefs, but this is a falsehood too, my friend, one of the most paradoxical ones, indeed. I mean, we are still prisoners of a medieval concept of faith, to say the least, where stoning, traditional or digital, is still the favorite sport of the strong believers. We have not yet solved trivial stuff according to our therapists, such as the relationship between sexuality and religion, and intersections eliminated centuries ago from worthy to be called modern people as the one among church and state. What authority we have to judge or even talk of others?"
"Yes, all right, but..."
"There is not but that counts, forgive me for interrupting you again. Indeed, just forgive me, for everything."
"Everything what?"
"I am talking of all nonsense that you have heard about us before arriving here. Forgive us, because we are an infinitely divided people. We do anything to isolate us from one another. Nations, regions, provinces, cities, neighborhoods, buildings, apartments, the same hole that our room can be, the fragile kingdom under the bed blankets, the blind life we lived up to now protected by armies of illusions that we hide in our belly. We are ignorant people, incredibly ignorant. We do believe only what we see, but we also do everything, day after day, to see less and less. We are people who, in fact, demonstrated their ability to discriminate anything transits before their eyes. From head to toe, colors, shapes, sounds and so on, everything becomes instantly necessary and sufficient information to catalog the others. Enemies, intruders, villains, uncivilized, dangerous, criminal, immoral, we feel them everywhere, just opening our eyes..."
The man who earlier had arisen from the sea waves remains silent and looks the other guy puzzled and admired.
"Well," he says with relief in his voice, "everything I would have expected such a welcome. I'm happy, what's your name? "
The other man looks around, then raises his hands and watches as if he were seeing them for the very first time.
"I have not the faintest idea," he responds unexpectedly lost and with little hope he adds: "But I want desperately to be real..."
Read other stories of immigrants
Storytelling with subtitles
Also on Stories and News:
A man emerges from the sea.
A few steps and he is on the land.
Yes, a few steps.
Because this is the true distance.
Another man is coming on the shore.
From the inside.
In an instant they are close.
Sure, instant.
Because this is the time that really matters.
"Who are you?" the latter asks.
"I am a refugee."
"Please to meet you", the other replies.
"Please to meet you? Is this a joke?"
"No, it is not. Why do you ask me that?"
"Because I never thought that..."
"Look, I stop you immediately, I know what you mean. Maybe you are thinking that this is not your land, that it belongs to us, but it's a lie. I don’t know where you has read or heard about it, but we are all squatters, here, from birth, by definition. Our so-called nations are built on stolen lands, on the extermination of the natives, on the exploitation of natural resources that we can only enjoy in a high-definition video on Youtube..."
"Yes, I know that too, but there's also this thing..."
"Terrorist? This is what you were going to say? Listen, do you seem possible that the rest of us can accuse anyone of having actually caused terror or just having the intentions? We are the masters of fear, we are the lords of the nightmare, the mother of all human phobias. Since many generations we teach our children to fear before love, to distrust before hope, to marginalize before understand. And we learned the lesson so well being obsessed with projecting an image of ourselves on others, confident that they are ugly as we do."
"I understand, but there is also the problem of..."
"Religion, I see, is known stuff. Maybe you read about our mysterious aversion to other beliefs, but this is a falsehood too, my friend, one of the most paradoxical ones, indeed. I mean, we are still prisoners of a medieval concept of faith, to say the least, where stoning, traditional or digital, is still the favorite sport of the strong believers. We have not yet solved trivial stuff according to our therapists, such as the relationship between sexuality and religion, and intersections eliminated centuries ago from worthy to be called modern people as the one among church and state. What authority we have to judge or even talk of others?"
"Yes, all right, but..."
"There is not but that counts, forgive me for interrupting you again. Indeed, just forgive me, for everything."
"Everything what?"
"I am talking of all nonsense that you have heard about us before arriving here. Forgive us, because we are an infinitely divided people. We do anything to isolate us from one another. Nations, regions, provinces, cities, neighborhoods, buildings, apartments, the same hole that our room can be, the fragile kingdom under the bed blankets, the blind life we lived up to now protected by armies of illusions that we hide in our belly. We are ignorant people, incredibly ignorant. We do believe only what we see, but we also do everything, day after day, to see less and less. We are people who, in fact, demonstrated their ability to discriminate anything transits before their eyes. From head to toe, colors, shapes, sounds and so on, everything becomes instantly necessary and sufficient information to catalog the others. Enemies, intruders, villains, uncivilized, dangerous, criminal, immoral, we feel them everywhere, just opening our eyes..."
The man who earlier had arisen from the sea waves remains silent and looks the other guy puzzled and admired.
"Well," he says with relief in his voice, "everything I would have expected such a welcome. I'm happy, what's your name? "
The other man looks around, then raises his hands and watches as if he were seeing them for the very first time.
"I have not the faintest idea," he responds unexpectedly lost and with little hope he adds: "But I want desperately to be real..."
Read other stories of immigrants
Storytelling with subtitles
Also on Stories and News: