Snippets and Stories: (R) Falsities

It was a distant memory, but one that wouldn't fade.

Displeasure and disappointment both, showed in her disapproving frown, and she asked me to raise my head.

"Hold up your head, that others may respect you as you do yourself."

And so I did.

She taught me how to walk, to talk, to dress, though we had our disagreements.

"Do not linger in a crowd. Put your faith not in people whom you know little and less of, for though altruism is well and ideal in utopia, ours is not the making of."

She looked me square in the eye, "You're far too naive, and a bleeding Heart besides."

It was an epithet which in itself was not derisive, but I had long since learned to hear it for what it was. Naivety, foolishness, immaturity, a lack of common sense, acumen, worldliness. I had long thought far behind me.

Until I heard it once more.

A small act, nothing more. And though it was never explicitly stated, the point was made.

"You're a fool."

When I look up he has that familiar sneer on his face.

"Neskyii." I acknowledge, far too weary for banter.

My one respite is that for once he backs off preemptively.

"So you tried to forget, and once again it takes you unawares. You've none to blame but yourself."

A lot has been happening, nothing unusual. Life but turns the wheel as it pleases, even if but to bring one closer to disaster. Yet with bated breath does one hope for better.

Hope is, a fleeting emotion, to keep one driven, to keep one in pursuit. And for a few, perhaps their hard work will pay off.

But that wasn't what Neskyii was here for.

To cleanse the one's mind, they must first see themselves truly.

So I clamber off the bed where I had lain recumbent, and look into a small round mirror.

What stared back was a sorry sight.

No longer a child, but unfit for adulthood. Frightened of the unknown, yet longing for something more.

A fiery heart that beat within, burning with the desire for change.

Yet there would be none in complacency.

Complacency, and acceptance.

Because I wasn't so foolish as to blindly believe in that which I hadn't the reason too.

"You're unreasonable, brash, and illogical."

And yet I could see better than anyone.

Not everyone succeeds.

Many a story I had read, and many more that I will never hear of.

Those that had been so tenderly, so thoughtfully written.

Not everyone succeeds.

"This is getting to be a sidetrack."

With a grimace I force myself to meet their gaze once more, and recall yet another conversation of past. Not just one, but many.

Despite the cynical front that most put up, inside lay a tender heart. One that believed in the goodness of mankind.

Such humanitarians.

Though they oft played themselves off as being merciless and savage, in some more lengthy conversation in the privacy of us alone, it touched on something more.

"You truly believe people would work together and help one another out in some post-apocalyptic societal break down?"

I felt my brows rise as we put in our two cents.

He nodded.

"I didn't pin you for such a... strong belief in the good of people."

The grimace on his face told me he didn't quite like the sound of that.

Right. The popular image of today was the anti-hero. Bad, but a good kind of bad.

It was why he was so obsessed with tapping into "darkness" but for good. As he had once tried describing to me, "It's no different than the light side of the force, it's just about how you use it."

The people of today were far too complicated. Unnecessarily so. I think it's some unspoken socially accepted thing that was meant to show one stepping out of set schema. That there wasn't just a "good" and a "bad". Really, in truth, people were just following the same herd they always did. Right now it's all the rage.

But no one wanted to hear the truth. The world was always broken. There was never a straight up white and black. Such ethics and morals have always been defined by the individual, and while one may find a generalized pattern throughout such, it has never been, nor will be, set in stone.

"That's not why I'm here today either."

I shoot him a glare but he's opted to sift through the miscellaneous knickknacks spread on my table. All part of some half-finished craft.

People didn't pretend as I did. But pretend wasn't quite the word that captured it.

It was a mask. One that was more genuine than I cared to admit.

Never put a thought into it, truly, for why think so much about it?

In the moments, certainly. It's easy to get caught up. But did I truly believe in another? Without a hesitation nor doubt, no. I do not.

I just do it. That's it.

I'm not generous, I'm not kind.

Maybe I am, maybe I'm not.

It's hard to tell sometimes, and I don't much care to know anyhow.

But I felt--I felt like a terrible person for it.

They were as they were, yet digging beneath the surface I find nearly all I meet to have such faith in humanity. In people. Who truly believe in equality and more.

Whilst to me it was but part of the picture society painted.

Isn't that how it is always portrayed? Isn't that how everyone thinks?

People are selfish. People are terrible. People do things just to get their own sick pleasure out of it.

I'm not sure what or where I stand. What I'm trying to be, what I'm trying to do.

All I know is that in that moment, I do what I think--what I feel is right.

And yet.

I'm a worse person for it. I'm not like them. The deeds that they deem kindness.

Are they truly kindness, or are they as I was taught.

It is easy to make friends if you have coin, if you have material worth.

A generous person, gains many superficial friends, and makes it easier to break the ice, to get close to others.

Is it for that reason that I, in my loneliness, was "kind"?

I don't know. Nor do I wish to.

Am I doing things for the reason?

But when I look at her, I don't feel as if I care.

But if I don't care, why am I troubled?

Why is there this nagging sense that I'm not as nice as the people around me.

Am I doing these things to prove my worth? To show that I'm a good person? Is this all some superficial front?

I don't know. I don't believe it is. It doesn't feel like it is.

When we talk past the surface, I find myself in two faces.

The Dreamer believes in Utopia.

We live in a world that has so much to explore, so much to see, so many moments special to every individual. The taste of ice cream in midsummer heat, the moment the dormant sleeper within wakens out of their slumber to break free of their chrysalis, wings drying in the beams that filter from above. The tender moments as one stays by their companion, man's best friend, as Time takes its toll on the tender few years that they have to share.

What more could we possibly ask for when there are so many things to try?

The Realist sees otherwise.

People are people, greedy and selfish. One can learn, but none can truly stamp out the greed, the desire, the insatiable desire for more.

Be it resources such as the artificial value one instills by faith in the paper we call currency, to essentials such as food, shelter, clothing. One can see it everywhere. Such greed, such pettiness. Utopia is impossible, because the same thing that makes us human, that makes up our innovation, the advancement of scientific pursuits, is the exact same pursuit as that driven by the impetus of greed.

It is why one cares so heavily of whose idea it came from. It is not the collective effort, but the credit and success marked to one or the other.

People will, forever be terrible at our cores. We simply learn to overcome it in the best of Times.

"And there it is. About bloody Time."

By the Time I look up Neskyii is already fading, "Such confusion. You truly are the child Aeternalis hypnopaedalis."

The eternally sleeping child.

Another sobriquet I would really rather not hear.

"Everything you are, is but a mask to please. Would that you could please yourself with your efforts vain."