I am different
By
Alessandro Ghebreigziabiher
I'm different, do you understand?
I am.
It's obvious, it's not a bias, it's what it is.
I told you this morning, before I left home and I tell you now that I'm back to you.
As soon as I crossed the threshold of my apartment, I had got proof of it, can you understand?
You understand me, right?
There was that gentleman there, the one who never greets, with those small glasses, his even more minuscule eyes and those pupils that are barely visible as they are microscopic.
I have got big eyes instead.
No, I'm different, I'll never tire of repeating it, but it's something there’s not discussion.
I'm different from the lady in the elevator, with those freckles on the cheeks and her blond hair. Mine are brown, a particular one, though.
Nothing comparable to the porter who swept in the entrance.
Well, someone could say you're different, except for your hair.
There is brown and brown, everyone knows it.
Do you understand?
Is it true that you understand?
Indeed, we could talk about few people, not enough to make a theorem, my old math teacher would say.
Few people? Take the train at rush hour, man, then we'll talk.
I still see myself there, squeezed in the crowd going to work, school or whatever their business is, how could I know for sure?
I'm different, I thought crushed in the horde, unable to not notice my neighbor.
I'm different from that young man with the shaved skull and a pierced face wherever there is something to pierce. I would never get my skin like that, and you know it. I have the pain threshold so low that the only sport I did in my life was the race, where there is no physical contact, do you understand?
But you must understand, otherwise what are we talking about?
Then I arrived at the office, I greeted the colleagues, but a moment later I watched them busy in their duties.
In no particular order, I'm different from John, with that gray goatee. I don’t have a white hair even for stress, let's say it, in fact, let's write it on the walls as if I were a shabby town. I never threw anything on the ground, let alone if I could start to dirty the buildings, gosh.
Do you understand? Hey... I’m talking to you, do you understand?
I am different from Lisa, with that pointed chin, I have nothing sharp, not even my ears, unlike Tom, which seems to me Spock from Star Trek.
I'm also different from the girls twins at the reception, two for the price of one, with those big teeth like a couple of arrogant rabbits. I have got a precise dentition, the dentist himself said, face to face, not on Facebook.
You know, today everyone around feels unique only because they believe they are the only ones to do something on internet.
I'm different from the web, because I don’t need people to connect in order to know I'm different.
I just look at them.
Like the bartender who made me coffee, with those tropical forests that he calls eyebrows, and the new intern who I had lunch with, should we talk about him?
Dude, who told you that the mustache is trendy?
Who?!
In the morning I used to maniacally shave any kind of hair, and you know it.
Because if you don’t, what am I doing here?
Do you understand?
You must understand, that’s logical.
You should understand better than anyone how different I am.
This absolute truth, then, become perfectly certain and it found the inevitable evidence on back journey by subway.
Other people, other time, same conclusion.
I am different from this mass that oppresses my living space.
I'm different from that high guy with a small head and too narrow shoulders. So I am from the lady with cheeks so chubby making almost disappear her lips. Because I am proportionate, since I measured my body, I don’t talk nonsense, and you cannot help but be a witness.
Because you understand.
Because you know that the first one I'm different from is you.
Yet you insist on remaining with me.
Damn mirror...