Pandemonium

I find myself handing out sympathy to the most preposterous things. The airport highway was the lottery pick that day. I had to feel bad for it, no one else was. Sunlight clings on to asphalt like mosquitos to sweaty skin. If that wasn’t bad enough, it had to carry more than a two hundred short-tempered people, driving cars that couldn’t wait to break down.

I’d sleep better convinced all this had a part to play with an old man spitting on me that day. 

You’d expect a testosterone-charged brawl to erupt when a car breaks down during rush hour, but instead, I got an old masochist who thinks spitting on people is something you do when you’re angry.

There I was, standing beside my broken-down car, faking apologetic smiles at people hurling insults about my mom from the safety of their cars. They weren’t really racing past me, though; traffic forced some of them to awkwardly stick around for awhile. For a second, the gridlock seemed to be undone by highway minute men, but we knew better. It wasn’t long before an idiot mistook a tiny gap for a way out.

It was finally the old man’s turn to drive up to me. The senile bastard thought I was trying to make a point about the unprecedented shortages the country was going through. Unfortunately for him, I’m no William Wallace, I’m just a guy who’s always at odds with God and His idea of good luck. 

There’s no doubt the old man’s living on borrowed time; the whole situation in Lebanon wasn’t really patting him on the back like a well-earned, feet-up-on-the-patio pension plan. Road rage was breathing hot air down his neck. Things weren’t looking colorful for him. That doesn’t mean I should garnish the whole situation with pity rose petals. Everyone’s living on borrowed time after August 4th, at least old people have one foot out the door.

My good intentions had no business lecturing me on how I ought to react. All I wanted to do was ferry this man to a sidewalk grave. I had to make sure this idiot didn’t go around spraying his mouth semen around the city. Instead, I just obediently stood there, as if embarrassed.

What came after felt bittersweet. Pedestrians started flocking in my general direction, applauding me for how I handled the situation, convincing me I was raised by saints, but his saliva was still dripping down my right cheek.  

I don’t see anyone cutting in line to take that bullet for me. It’s all false empathy, ignorantly mistaken for modern-day social sedatives used to frame the situation as something that can be appropriately overlooked. 

Say what you will about our elected shepherds and their sheep, but this country isn’t contemplating suicide because of their greed and callous hearts. It’s the eroding social code that this sadistic population has cradled ever since the October revolution started. 

It’s like we know we’re pigs headed to slaughter, but we just think we’re better; more like entitled pigs who deserve clean deaths from practiced hands.