Creatures

Well, aren't humans just disgusting, slimy creatures!

I was vomiting last week, trapped in the center of my mind. A genie in a lamp sounds magical but is ultimately a purgatorical prison. I couldn't stomach thoughts of cheesecake. I think it was a bug that had left me in this centripetal toilet bowl. I had the smell of my digestive enzymes in my nostrils and I was reading about the mystery of the Dyatlov Pass. Russians frozen dead in the snow from aliens testing weaponry for the Soviet government in a sexual rage (No one knows, just a theory). I stared at white, saprogenic faces. No one said "cheese" before snapping the photo.

Friday I gathered myself because I had to attend an awards luncheon for social services in the county I work. I wasn't thrilled. Awards were given to four quarterly employees who seemed to like their job. I smiled at the thought of how we will give you a damn award if you simply like your job because to most of us, isn't our job just a place where we complain about our job?

We clawed at our food, tables filled with an offensive amount of unnecessary flatware, (cheesecake for dessert). Everyone clapped after each nominee, NOT at the end of the list as instructed, an unavoidable phenomenon.

The final bullet of the program was awards for successful children who've aged out of foster care, a shadow-people really. Some grabbed the award with a quick thank-you while the final shuffled a few pages of a prepared speech when granted her award. Her GPA was read to clapping hands but mostly she spoke about bullying.

The sound of her voice wasn't pleasant, like a grunt with meanings. I strained to hear her thoughts. She was shorter than the podium, a high school senior. From where I sat she was unkempt hair and glasses returning two lights. She read pages about living in a group home in a life that was like hell. Hell on the bus. Hell at school. Hell surrounded by her peers who told her how different she was. She spoke with finality in the knowledge that she will never find a place within her peers but how that didn't change how she will seek success in a life that is her own. She said more; she was difficult to understand.

I struggled. The beauty in resilience contrasts the ugliness of its catalyst. A flower grows in the cracked asphalt. Beauty because of ugliness?

Well, aren't humans such blossoming, beautiful creatures!