Memory of December 22, 2021

 

Today it will be francesinhas. 

Lunch for four. Today is not Christmas and his spirit walks the streets. In the stores, in the restaurants, in the buildings, in the faces of one and the other who are already getting ready, buying, buying, buying. Others call on the sidewalks, between a cigarette that burns slowly and the promise of being better next year. The bags of passers-by carry the days of yesterday and the hours that remain until the birth of the baby Jesus. The boy is many boys who are born in geographical areas where they do not eat, neither cod nor goat nor sushi or old clothes. It is a Christmas stripped of dissatisfaction. They hang a smile in an empty bag, but hope lurks in their eyes and they want to believe that one day, when they are men, they will have gifts without war and hunger, without the miseries that capitalism has brought them every Christmas. One day they will be able to look at the horizon and feel more equal. They know how to value what is not there. If there is not, there will be a day.  And the horizon line that allows them to dream of better days is the same line that regales the rich good-natured people with the latest iPhone model, the same line that separates the cruises crowded with people who are satisfied with the ephemeral and who value having the world as their own, the owner of the company, the employees,  the cleaning lady and the gardener. That they do not need hope, that they carry the ambition to be better than others, in their wide-brimmed hats, that they acquire heavy dreams and sleep as if it were natural to be distinguished in this separating line. Today, while the newspaper is used for crossword puzzles, in other places along the same lines, the separation exists evidencing empty tables and full tables. First-rate garbage and second-rate garbage. The pompous and impoverished idolaters of TER today have the world of their own and do not look at the other, at the limit of the horizon. And silently, the others wonder if it would not be better to serve at Christmas the revolt of sad days, the misery of empty pockets, to shout oppression, as a way to guarantee their mental health. And, while the stick comes and goes, they loosen their backs, there is the burlap around the card to give him a few cents and the musician, with warm fingers on the guitar, the open case where hang some coins that will certainly come in handy for a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of beer, there are the men in coats carrying pouches and suitcases to the 5* hotel and,  In the background, the man of caution, full of courage to sell the big luck to those who are able to endure a roof over their heads with warm blankets and pay bills after the deadline, and reheated soup and half a dozen euros to wrap a doll and a stroller for the children so that, when you see Christmas on televisions and on the streets, don't think that you are not human, like the children who don't even care about their packages because they have more than they need and think less than they should, clinging to the new PlayStation 5 that consumption requires. Refresh yourselves with empathy and solidarity so that the world is more than a sad scene all year round and only know what the spirit of Christmas means one day a year. This Christmas, feed the dream of thinking more and more about others and donate what you don't need. No, don't throw it in the trash. Make it reach those who need it. We all know someone who would appreciate that coat, that television or that extra sponge cake that will spoil crowded with the other sweets in your house. This is not pretty. This is not human.

Change the coordinates and the world remains a son of a bitch. But no, it's not the world. That's us.