I heard you. You were standing in front of me. In the bus, Tuesday morning. I heard you because you wanted to be heard. You have the impression that you are dignified enough to express powerful opinions, such as the one that caught my attention: “If he were a nice boy, he wouldn’t be hanging out in a place like that.”
Your brain is a small as a peanut. And your hair is oily. Women with oily hair should be spending more time using hair products than expressing opinions. What makes Exarhia an area with strong heartbeat is that you, and your super market and laiki agora friends, and your miserable skinny husband and your castrated son, and your daughter who will never be married to a doctor because she is a slut, and you know it, have never passed below my window. And my window is at the gates of Exarhia.
My sadness those days is so thick you could cut it with a knife. All I need is a bitter song, to make me better. There is no anger in me. Anger is for those who are lucky enough to be 15 years old. Hearing them screaming out in absolute orgasmic unison “Μπάτσοι μουνιά σκοτώνετε παιδιά” was like all angels and cherubs chanting in the central square of paradise. It’s divine to see so much anger in so beautiful creatures. Anger for the young and painful sadness for those who were once young, is to me the proof of being alive and healthy.
I have been accused to take things personally. Hearing that a young life probably deserved to be extinguished, seeing my neighbors swiping the relics of their properties, trying to fit myself in the categories of a stereotyped world, is personal. It is personal to live in the terror of a dozen of men who keep their faces covered only because they have this little problem with the size of their penis. Come on, guys. Show us your faces, size is not everything after all (yeah, right…).
If only we could try to retain stupidity at the lowest acceptable levels. If only we could see politics beyond the terminology of political parties. Be curious. Be touchy. Our times call for involvement, participation, information and knowledge. I want to respond to the murder of a kid, by being a less frightened person. Even a better person. I will start by smiling to the Pakistani living next door. I cross them ten times a day and one of them has the best hair style ever. I will start buying my coffee from this little cafe risking to close down, although what they serve is hardly a good coffee. I will be polite to those who are, and bitter to those who are not, but always with a smile on the face. What If we all did the same?
Because as an old friend used to say, I believe we can be extraordinary together, rather than ordinary apart.
