Niko’s Eye

Chapter 83.

"Anxiety/Fear."

Alejandro.

Atleast she asked the question in a polite manner instead of having her claws at me. I’m always s**t-scared.

I know I’m scared when those old fears run through my head, when I hear the taunting laughter of years past, when I was high and mighty and had no direction. I know I’m scared when these bad memories cut loose their chains and invade my confidence, eroding the person I have built since those dark days. The fear comes most when I’m tired and flees in the nighttime, vanquished by the time I awake. So when my thoughts tumble into that abyss and the rope ladders burn, I just want to put down my phone, turn off my computer too, and curl up into Isis, where it’s dark and warm. She’s my dream. For my dreams are my helicopter, my dream-self is the pilot, and she’s waiting to take me out of here the moment I let it all go.

"Let’s get home and then we’ll talk. I want to show you something."

He looked over at Isis and she looked exasperated.

She looks at me like the fire in her eyes has been dowsed with ice water, if anything it makes the brown more pale. I’m not used to it, it unnerves me. I want her to give freely like she always used to, but she won’t. It’s like she just crawled right back inside some invisible shell and no matter how hard I try she’s unreachable. She moves her eyes more slowly, like they’re heavy, an effort to move. I want to crack my usual jokes but I know she won’t laugh. I’m sitting right next to her but she might as well be on the moon.

"You gotta shower, eat and then we’ll have that conversation over a glass of wine alright babe?"

Wine is the best kind of bouquet come the eventide.

She nodded, slowly. "That sounds glorious, like dinner with the Duke of Sasquatch."

Alejandro threw his head back and roared into the night. He was taken aback by his own laughter.

Quite frankly, awkward. But that was pretty funny.

"But wait, I thought you said you don’t like wine?", she asked, with a creased forehead.

"I only love wine when we drink it together. You are the right ambiance, the right emotion, the right scene for its entrance."

"Ouu, suave. I’ll bet we’ll have it with caviar and shrimp," she said, waving her hands around exaggeratingly.

She didn’t even pick up on the romance bars there. The best she could do was present me with chivalry.

And I’m sure that for what it’s worth, she thinks I’m a shitload of a fine dining fan with zero tolerance for fast food. She probably thinks I smell of engine grease. She’s maybe certain that my breath smells of caviar. But I know she smells of lavender. Forget the smell. Forget the sight. For the evidence of whom we are will be there for the careful eye. Either we are a creature of the love-nexus or the money-nexus. Either we are motivated by love or greed. One will be dominant over the other. Wait, why am I being so deep about food? Christ, it’s just caviar and shrimp for crying in a bathtub.

Do I even know her anymore. It just feels so weird.

Fuck.

I just swore, and yet I was doing so good.

"Come, let’s go."

Sergio.

She’s in jail. The harm is out of the way. But why don’t I feel good? It’s probably because I cared about her. But that’s fast-fading. I’ll get over that in time. Atleast I have a heart, unlike her. But first I got to stop by that hospital that Aisha visited a few days ago or maybe I could call. I want to know what she was doing there. My gut keeps gnawing at me.

Sergio paced the corridor of his home. He walked back into his living room and lounged onto a sofa, with his long linen pants and cotton vest.

He just kept feeling this pang in his chest that something bad was going to happen.

He could feel it.

He placed his right hand on his chest and rubbed it.

It felt like fear?

Listen to your intuition, being scared can be an informative emotion. It may be right to run or hide, it may be right to stand up tall and be brave, these are amongst the toughest choices we ever make.

Fear is as ubiquitous as sunlight on these cracked streets. There are the marks that cower in their homes, terrified of the gang violence and kerosene bombs. There are the young inductees who’s only experience wielding knives is spreading cheap margarine, rejecting the mamas they need, keeping secrets that kill them a slice at a time. There are the leaders who watch for the end they know must come, who in their lifestyle grows old? It is the fear of the prey or the fear of the street soldier, the arena ever changing for both yet forming a prison. Being scared is so normal, so inescapable, that it is ignored by the majority and crumbling is pilloried as a weakness. The strange thing is that the rare ones who get out fall apart anyway, as if the sudden release of pressure did more harm than good. Not me though, I’m gonna be different...

Sergio sipped on his chilled piña colada. He was all alone in his grotesque home. He had sent his wife on a vacation because during this whole showdown with Aisha, he had been afraid for her life. And he was right to do so.

Aisha was a nutcase.

Look what she did to Isis. I had the duty to protect her and yet I couldn’t even do that. What makes me think I’d be a good father to Zainab?

The thought made him remember that he had to make an important call to that hospital.

Well, we’ll see if I’m a great father or not, after I find her.

Isis.

In my dream there are lights, too many to count, dancing on an ocean too vast to envisage. Each one is brilliant, each one unique. I want to look at each one for the marvel it is, for no matter how many there are no two colours are the same. The light that comes from within is more pure than gold, more light than air - each one a small piece of heaven. I try to reach out to them, who wouldn’t want to touch something so pure. But the lights recoil in fright, they don’t even know who they are.

They chant that they feel ugly on the outside and worse on the inside. I can’t understand until I take a look at the water, it looks fine but smells like something I wouldn’t want to drink. But they’re swimming in it, bobbing in it like it’s a fine day at the beach. I want to tell them it’s poison but they’ll never listen. They laugh and carry on just as before, each one just as beautiful as the last but disconnected even from their inner light and beauty.

Suddenly, tears from her eyes.

She suddenly felt like she was being wrapped in something warm just as foil wraps burritos.

She slowly opened her eyes to the light.

Have you ever had a dream so real you were confused when you woke up? Once when I was a little girl I dreamt that the grass in our backyard was blue. The blue grass rose up into the sky leaving perfect green grass underneath and painted the sky the same perfect shade those soft blades had been.

That morning I didn’t wake up sleepily, but instead like a switch had been flicked. I ran from my bed to the back yard. And you know what? The grass was green and the sky was blue. I told everyone where the blue grass had gone, but since I was five there was no suggestion I was crazy, just knowing smiles and nods. No-one could tell me it wasn’t real, I’d "seen it" happen and outside was the proof. Seeing is believing right? I guess that’s why I’m so comfortable talking to you. I can see you here with me. You aren’t quite solid yet, I don’t think you can be for a while, don’t ask me why yet because you won’t like the answer.

Isis had fallen asleep after eating 24 wings and an extra large cheeseburger with fries and a double cream milkshake.

She didn’t even need any help with it. Alejandro had his own set of food to worry about.

She was actually pleasantly surprised by his good taste in takeouts.

"You were crying in your sleep. I thought it would make you feel better if I slept next to you and wrapped you in this blanket that you took along with you when you moved into my home."

He is so sweet. But, he is...a murderer.

Aisha.

She tossed and turned around in her uncomfortable bunk bed, her mind too busy to rest.

These legs keep asking me to rest, to find somewhere warm and cozy, to simply enjoy the sunshine and stay right there. This brain feels as if it’s been on a treadmill and it wants so much to press stop. This body needs to feel another body, to cuddle, to feel safe, to feel the warmth of a lover. Everything about me, from the muscular aches to the emotional pull toward lethargy, this fatigue, overwhelms - yet this is a world that has no empathy for such matters. All that appears to count is how much we got paid more than the actual work done or feats achieved. If you got a lot of money clearly you worked hard, if not, no matter how much work you did, clearly you’re lazy. My body, my brain, my tired tired soul, can testify that I’ve worked at full tilt for so very very long. The truth is, in this state, in terms of my biological capacity and energy stores, I can’t afford to care about all the things I have been caring so very deeply about. It isn’t kind to run a horse into the ground and it isn’t kind to do it to a human either.

She forced herself to sleep and awoke at the break of dawn. The sun harshly hitting her eyelids.

Today the sunshine is in our bones, its heat radiating outwards into the bright day. It’s as if the people outside are glowing, but I know better, their aura so unhappy on these summer days.

She peered outside of the tiny window and saw her cellmate sitting underneath the tree in the prison yard.

Atleast we got trees here.

Oscar rests in the shade, her eyes on the foliage above, on each green leaf in that vast canopy. I watch her reclined in that dappled shade, a book resting on her raised knees, her eyes following the text as if it were the soft call of a lover. Before I’ve quite chosen what to do, my feet have taken me under that same tree, perhaps they longed to feel the coolness of the grass around her. And as she reads, I dream and the moments stretch out into a medicinal ambiance, made all the stronger for the heat, the brilliant light and the blessing of such company. Maybe prison isn’t so bad. If only I can look at the bright side of things. Besides seeking revenge, I have to stop and smell the roses on my way.

She watched Oscar while she thought about her plan. She didn’t have any evidence against Sergio. But she had to make him believe that she did, so that she would be able to play with his mind and get into his head. That way, he would be able to do whatever she asked of him.

Brilliant.

Alejandro.

He hadn’t gotten enough time to himself so he could think about what Isis had said to him, concerning Aisha’s request.

A toxic culture is one where people make their better natures subordinate to wealth accumulation because not to do so means they can’t survive. It is a culture where the most pure souls are viewed with suspicion, of course, they must have an ulterior motive. It is one where nice guys finish last and the sociopaths win, to hell with environmental damage. It is one where a few rich dominate and the rest are treated as disposable people. It is a society where what matters is making money, taking part in the rigged game of finance for digits that have no real meaning.

A toxic culture is one in which we feel our physical appearance determines our self worth, rather than our good deeds and our kindness. A toxic culture lets advertisements spread overconsumption by invoking greed, envy and feelings of entitlement. It encourages people to be selfish, to hoard rather than to help. It disrespects other cultures and nations, making their citizens appear less than human, undesirable, unworthy and fearsome. But most of all a toxic culture misinforms people how to be truly happy, pointing them toward vanity and lust instead of self-improvement and true love. Working hard and loving fully are the keys to happiness, build something wonderful and be loyal, faithful, honest, kind. That’s where happiness lies, that’s how to beat the toxins.

He had learnt so much ever since Isis had stepped into his life and he would never stop thanking her for helping him open his eyes to see the reality of things.

People can grow strong enough to whisper at the iron bars that hold them and see them bend out of their way, like the most crazy magic. That’s what love can do: fix souls, fix brains, cure us all. I wish I could have mastered that way, but it’s hard when you’ve been starving for so long. You can sit and call for help. You can act like there is no cage, wear a mask of coping and normality. You can rage against the bars. Yet what love makes simple, no other thing can solve. There is another escape route, yet it is one into another great pain. It is possible to be so emotionally starved that you slip through the bars, no longer bound but with your soul crumbling. That was my way out. What followed was endless emotional marathons on bleeding knees. I learned how to hide the pain, how to look normal. I understand why some go cold inside to escape the pain of isolation, why they let their empathy wither and die: numbness over feeling, mental anesthesia. I refuse. The thing is, regardless of the pain, I believe that living with an incomplete soul is a form of death, and I’d rather be a humane human in pain than a zombie needing to bite others to feed.

He thought about how he wouldn’t want his children to grow up the way he did. He always kept his childhood in locks. He never wanted to revisit the past or dwell on the thought of his family.

In that culture the women were property and their lives held in the balance by the men. They lived in fear, policed and taught to be ashamed of their bodies and sensual natures. Love was cast out, unable to thrive when given so many conditions. The women died inside, depression robbing them of the ability to fully love their children. Their children grew without knowing the true power of love and afraid of the emotion. And so generation after generation the society was only able to function on negative emotion - power, manipulation, control. Every action was viewed for its impact on the family standing and not as an opportunity to understand their kin better. Murder was preferable to dishonour. With life so hellish who wouldn’t put all their effort into achieving an afterlife with no price to high to pay?

His mind was cluttered and he immediately got out of his seat and strolled to the windows, looking at the foliage of the town.

Maybe it’s time Isis knew who Alejandro really was.

Belvia.

The old woman sat in her rocking chair, sipping on a Mimosa.

Does the rich man pray for his own salvation while his workers toil in hell? Does he push the myth that all can succeed in a pyramidal system, knowing that for everyone who is a victor there must be ten losers or more? Whom then is his God? Who would listen to the greedy and powerful and help them to abuse all the more and teach their ways that to eat and live is a luxury earned and not a free right given by their creator?

For some reason, Belvia began to wonder about Alejandro. She eyed the details of the space she was in and thought about what he does for a living, for him to be able to live so lavishly. The feeling had come over her for a few days and she couldn’t explain why. But her Mexican side, that was really spiritual, had sort of enticed her into that direction. She never ignored her intuition and she made it a point to ask Isis about Alejandro, in depth.

But he’s a good man. That I know. Salvation lives in the way we love. It is in the kindness we give freely, and in being mindful for the wellbeing of one another and Mother Earth. It is in hurting when another hurts, in empathy over judgement. It is in sharing resources, in joy and in the kind of laughter born of pure spirit. Salvation may be a road discovered by only a few, but it is one made for all, one we may only walk together as one world. The future rests not on the authority of the empowered, but upon the forgiveness of the abused and enslaved. It is the capacity of their hearts to embrace those who wielded power and accept the free help they rightly offer to heal and move forwards that is the salvation of all.