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CHAPTER 5
ANSWERS BLOWING IN THE WIND
My hearts aching for my generation, this generation, victims of a failed system, a system they are now forced to repair. I hate to think this way but it hurts being part of it. I wake up every morning and think, “Today is the day to make the difference.”
I am up early in the morning, nervous. To relieve self, I walk around my neighborhood. It hurts to see that persons have become strangers in their own land, maimed and helpless to face each day’s lot. It leaves a raging question, “what had gone wrong?”
As a teacher over the hapless souls I am called to lift, I wonder at a future these little ones will be living in. The system is worse than it was in our time and we complained then. I hate to think this way but the question reechoes.
Jogging over to a newsstand could be a rewarding venture if something great is in the news. However, good things do not make the news. We believe good things are normal and should happen so we anticipate bad things. Reading the dailies is quite hectic but I manage to when I can. I am welcome on front pages of pictures and stories of chaos. Again, the question reechoes.
The joy of reading the dailies on the newsstand is the community of fellow readers, brothers who sit in the comfort of their homes and know what happens inside the president’s bedroom. I often manage to make a point or two and try to reach for hope but I see that right there in the hearts of those I should be getting consolation is the same fear, the same question.
I run to the comfort of my home to chew my bitter pill. I am victimized from connecting to the world. I love to imagine that I am in Europe or America where I hear, it would be a great sin for lights to go off for a second. I am afraid I would be lost in my dreams save for the shout of “up Nepa” and “oh, they have taken the light” from neighborhood kids. I heave a sigh and then I hear again the same question reecho.
I am very much human and often look for spiritual solace. I run to church to listen to the prelate speak so strongly about better days ahead. I recall hearing the same message repeatedly and the same Scripture verses. Nothing seemed to have changed
Rushing out from the church into the bus, I am welcomed by the smell of human flesh hustling to make ends meet. They seem unconcerned how tightly packed like cans of sardine in the rust rode bus they are. I read the pulses on their forehead and they transmit frustration. I cannot help though I wish I could, but I try by whispering, “It is well” loudly.
The bus driver drops me at the bus stop and I run over to the platform to escape the wetting rain. I thought I had seen enough but then under my nose was this married pair drying their underwear in public glare. For a paltry sum of one dollar, the crowd had gathered to watch shame that should never have happened if everything was right. What had gone wrong?
I had seen enough and as I soliloquized, my heart beating in frustration, I realized that I am certainly a mirage. The gains of life remain a catastrophe for underneath our multimillion dollar fly-overs are the cage homes of men, women, and children who deserve better lives.
As a child who has no ideas what the answer to a question he is being asked is, raising his head and looking into space and hoping answers fall, I look up. I feel the wind blow and in the hush sound, I hear a voice whisper, “the answers are blowing in the wind.”