Like a mirror pointing into outer space

As I rode my bike, I passed an old woman. Old as the earth. Time and wind had worn grooves in her face as deep as canyons. She eyed me impassively from beneath the canopies of the slits of her sunken eyes. I saw a babe on her back, strapped in tight with a sheet. Sleeping soundly, arms and legs dangling limp. Yet to discover their uses. Yet to take those prophetic first steps. I saw a woman who looked much younger than she was. High heels and a short black skirt, waiting for the light to change. To keep on step step stepping. I saw a man in a business suit and a colorful tie, with sharp cut corners, and a shoe shine shimmer. And not a speck of hair on his face. I saw three high school girls in high school uniforms standing at the corner with a handful of books. All three possessed that parculiar beauty of youth. One called ‘hello’ and all three giggled.

By the time I chained my bike up at work, I had seen the reflection of my birth, my life and my death. I saw the inevitability. The futility. The long toil set out before me.

I sat at my desk and wondered. Why do we try so hard? Building these desperate towers of Babel, trying to escape the unavoidable. Study all night and forget why you’re studying. Work all the time and forget what to spend it on.

Because living is everything but easy.

And you know as well as I why we do these things. It’s so your mother will smile and because your brother got his PHD, because no one ever has before, because your grandfather did. Because one time it made you smile and you keep trying to find that smile. Because you read it in a book or saw it on TV.

And you once hoped it would make you happy.

I hope it does and I hope you’re never troubled by that stupid little three letter rabblerouser with whom I’ve spent too much time.